Rosa von das Roten Tod
by Shoysrock
Summary: An epic, thrilling version of the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Masque of the Red Death"! Romance, violence, a quest for revenge and gripping, dark adventure! M for violence, angst and sex.
1. Chapter 1: Village of Skulls

**Shoys here! With a non-Van Helsing fanfic…an epic retelling of the Edgar Allen Poe story **_**the Masque of the Red Death. **_**–chills- **

**A tale of bloodshed, terror, romance, seduction, mystery, revenge, mortality and beauty…please enjoy! There will be plenty of romance and sexy villains too! To help…the setting is a large country with costumes and styles similar to 17****th**** and 18****th**** century clothing in a Dark Age/Renaissance world. To see art I have done for this and other things, check out my DeviantART, username Sahkmet:D**

**Rosa von das Roten Tod, or, Rose of the Red Death.**

The beak doctor tread onward.

It was his solemn duty for the prince of the land. The prince of Labaverion and the princes before him created the beak doctors to travel the land to heal the dying.

Beak doctors lasted longer than others around the sick. The masks held the only known staving herbs and vapors. Though it got sweaty under the mask, he'd better not take it off around people. He might catch the plague.

There was a plague. A dreadful plague…since Prince Vanguard Prospero…there has been a plague. A plague of the most terrible sorts. And around him in the dead fields, the carcasses of cattle and bleeding songbirds…the wild wheat and the weeds growing, the afternoon sky seeming to tint red…

He shivered trodding faster past the decay and death. He clutched the pack of herbs, scrolls, the holy book, amulets and his food and water. It was slung around his shoulder under the black robes with the emblem of his office. He was frightened.

But he must travel, he must try to help survivors of villages. Sometimes he was successful, most of the time the entire village was plagued and no one was alive…and sometimes he tried his best but they all died, littering the dirt paths or the town streets.

He was a loner of the second rank. He was to sweep this section of the country. The section only had small villages and poor nobility so he could deal with the smaller population. The plague was spreading faster and faster every year…

The plague was known as the Red Death. Blood was it's avatar and it's seal…the redness of horror and blood. Long nights he tossed and turned on his bedroll dreaming about the people he couldn't save, the innocents with their skin bleeding profusely, the half hour time it took to let them die, the weeping children convulsing in tolling fever, the moaning of the dying, the stench of blood and decay, crumbling buildings, the red mist…

He slapped himself. 

He mustn't think too much of death, for he would be too shaken to cure it. He stared out in the distance to the north and saw some chimney smoke. There was a village in those hills.

He could not ignore the call of duty. Under this order of monks he must heed the call to the ill. He must try to save all of the God's creatures.

The path was dry and dusty soil and soon he came upon the village. Luckily he saw peasants milling about. Women were getting water from the fountain, a few children laughed a little while tending to sickly chickens, men smoked their pipes and there was some activity in the bar, and a wagon passed in at the other side with barrels and bags. 

But all wore black. All were pale. Most coughed. Some men and children were bandaged. Depression hung like clouds and mist. Sadness was everywhere.

He stopped and pulled out his pendant. Cheap metal with the crow as my emblem. The villagers, recognizing he was a much needed beak doctor, started murmuring and swarming closer.

"I am Dr. Williams of the High Order of the Bird Doctors, blessed by the god of healing Cravus. I have the right to cleanse and heal the Red Death at my disposal." He spoke loud and clear.

All were silent save for the howling wind…and a wail from a house.

The village was not fully plagued. It was only tainted, but that wail seemed to prove otherwise. 

A little brown haired girl walked barefoot up to the young doctor. She looked up with a dirty muddy face, a ragged brown dress and green apron and a tattered ribbon around her waist. 

Her innocent eyes were very sad looking as she stared at the doctor. He looked through the mask holes and looked down.

She tugged on the black sleeve, telling me to follow her.

Through the crowd he tread under the fearful watchful eyes of the people. The little girl dragged the young doctor along to a small shabby hut. The tall doctor strode in with the girl into the dark dirty home.

There was a fire going, dirty dishes, and covered windows. There in the bed was a middle-aged woman with bandages and wet towels on her face.

Immediately the doctor knew what to do. He opened his pack on the table, pulling out dried herbs and a scroll. He started grinding a paste with the herbs and added some cold water from a pitcher. The little girl just stood by and watched as he set to work.

It might be too late for her mother. Already she had lost plenty of blood through the skin that made her clothing darkly soaked. Blood dripped from the tips of her fingers and she kept moaning in pain. Her skin too was flushed red with fever and sweat.

Silently he stripped her and started cleaning her of blood. Naked and dying, he pressed the paste on her face and made some more of different substances for her. It was a broth he made her swallow. The mask's incense made him feel safer and protected him for now, of the plague. He knew he was tainted too. If he was careful he might live 6 more months.

He was trained in the monkshood for a year, and three years earlier was in the medical schools. There was a demand for men to become crusading doctors now that the plague was spreading further inland within the past few years. More people to combat the almost unstoppable disease. He thought he could be a normal doctor…but he was now unscripted to this duty for dying with his country. He would outlast many, but in the end die from the plague. The incense and herbs only stopped it from hitting him full force.

It seemed to waste such a young man with knowledge to try to help the ailing.

But it was wrong not to.

The villagers went back to work as the doctor healed and prayed blessings from the scroll. The priest of the village had just finished burying the little girl's father and set about to pray to the gods in the church.

Then the villagers stopped and looked at the road.

A creature was walking into town.

A tall black shrouded being, with a hat and a beak was shuffling into the village. He had a feathery cowl and the darkness upon the figure was thick and black. The creature had it's head bowed and it's large, black glassy eyes…almost looking like the man had those eyes instead of glass protection…obviously the people assumed it was a beak doctor. He looked like one.

The man stopped in he middle town. A wheezing could be heard from the thing.

"I'll take him. My ill…" A woodcutter said and sauntered over, with grim cause to the doctor. He tipped his hat with the ragged feather and kneeled at the reverend doctor's feet. It was custom when an adult needed the purposes of the Beak Doctors to kneel.

"Help me doctor…help my child…help the village, the plague is here…in the name of the Gods of Life and Death, I beseech your favor." He solemnly said.

The robed, monstrous thing stood and wheezed.

Its beak clacked open and immediately it shrieked, clawed hands with feather slashing out of the folds of the thick robe and grabbed his head. The beast dove down upon the man and with its beak, latched on the man's neck.

It wrenched the woodcutter's head off with its toothed maw.

This was no beak doctor.

It was a monster.

The people screamed at the blood that puddle and the beaked creature that was eating him. Its sharp talons clawed and ripped the flesh and clothes off the dead innocent as it stared chewing the muscles on the chest. It slobbered and hissed like a bird no doubt the thing was bird-like…

The people ran, hysteria all around as they went to their houses while the med gathered their knives, muskets and farm tools. They must kill the thing, the demon!

However it was the children who first noticed. They screamed the loudest as they saw many, many more black cloaked hissing, wheezing clucking bird-men swarm and run into the village.

Husbands watched their wives being mauled to death. Brothers saw their siblings slashed and stabbed with dark daggers. The populace ran back to the middle of the square.

Some went past the demons to the hills that surrounded them. But then they were stopped.

They saw seven red cloaked figures surrounded the village. Deep scarlet robes and long hoods showed nothing but darkness hidden as their faces. A red mist made a border around the village hills. Those who ran through the mist started bleeding and convulsing. They had the Red Death.

Most of the villagers were in the square. The bird beasts, whatever they were, were eating the remains of the fallen attacked people. They made no move into the square though, only to scare those who wanted to make a run for it. The innocents were corralled.

Then there was the sound of horse's hooves, the wheels of a carriage, and a beak doctor looking outside the window at the scene of terror.

The bird men stood watching the terror stricken people. Blood dripped from their black beaked maws and entrails were on their talons and clawed feet. The black blood-lusting things stared at the townsfolk as dust appeared on the horizon. A red carriage was coming.

The doctor took a double take at the blood spattered on the walls and the dismembered body parts everywhere on the ground. He went outside, trembling holding scroll of protection he was muttering and locked the girl into the house. She would be safe there he hoped. 

He ran out and the people crowded around him. He handed scrolls to the people, and they immediately started praying the incantations off them in hopes of protection against these beasts. He himself trembled with them, standing tall amongst the weeping women on the ground and the shaking men, ready to lash out with their weapons if the beasts got closer. The cackling flock of the creature and the still figures of the red robed beings watching and surrounded them. No man dared to leave the circle of ground. Some had wounds already from claws and teeth.

He thought he was too young to die. He had heard stories from villages before of blood drinking beak doctors, and found one village completely slaughter, both of Red Death and people partially eaten. But he never saw peasants getting attacked, ripped to shreds and get eaten.

Now he was in the center of the frightened people who hardly knew real bloodshed of this size. Half the village was dead already. The rest were clinging to his black robes.

They all sobbed and cringed. And they watched the carriage roll into the village.

A red and gold ornamented carriage, very large, rolled into the village. It was drawn by four maroon horses. They had dark demonic horns on their heads of varying sizes, shapes and patterns. Teeth jutted from their frothing lips and their eyes were black with a single red spark in them. The rein-master was one of the vicious beaked monsters, looking the same as all the others save for the red feather in it's pointed cap and and red cloak. The carriage was beautiful but had tattered rags around it like it had been draped with a burgundy veil. A red mist surrounded the carriage and dissipated.

The people trembled and most fell to their knees. The doctor stood and tried to remain brave and slowly stepped forward out of the crowd. He stood at the edge holding amulets and shaped metallic objects, wards of protection as he shook and watched as the carriage stopped rolling. 

The red ominous vehicle stopped. The horses whinnied and pawed the earth with sharp cloven hooves. 

The bird-man cawed. Nothing else was heard but the muttering frightened prayers the people spoke, and wail of a crying baby.

The curtained door opened. Out stepped unto the dirt two red boots and a the trail of a dark red cape.

A man, or thing, or a beast of man, a spirit, demon…god…whatever _it _was it closed the door and walked out. It turned it's head and stared into the eyes of all the innocents.

"My Lords…in heaven…what are you?" The doctor whispered in his mask. He had grown incredibly sweaty under the heavy cloth and wooden mask on his face, and the scent of herbs he had grown used to now appear to be stifling compared to the bloody vapor his clothing. 

A tall man stood. He was clothed head to foot in dark red, like the color of clotting blood or the pal our of a fox in ruddy sunset. He was enveloped by a cloak and his shoulders were pointed. Long red, thin hair like a ghost whipped in the chilly autumn wind and his face was darkened by the shadow of his pointed, large red hat. It looked heavy with a bounty of black feathers and rubies on his hat. Then he raised his face.

All gasped, some screamed, and a woman fainted. The doctor staggered and paled, almost wetting his pants. He had never been so afraid in his lifetime. He had seen death…but he had never seen the god he gave it.

He was sure it was a God.

The being wore a skull mask. A terrible, white mask, and around the eye sockets was dripping blood. The mask did not have a skull mouth, and the mouth was human, the ruddy red lips and the pale chin of the evil being who wore it. The skull mask had instead two fangs, one at each side. Long pointed ears and gold hoop earrings stuck out of the red hair.

The eyes were red with bloodlust and the urge to kill.

Mist seeped like smoke, or mist, or fog, whatever fitted the poison vapor from him…our from under his cloak.

He was a mockery of nobility, or in fact he was of the highest order of the ruling classes of the universal order. 

Whatever it was, it opened its arms out and smiled.

"Today a new village will be built. A village of skulls." He spoke in an unearthly beautiful voice.

The doctor himself almost fainted.

Laughter came from those lips of the devilish demon as he saw the peasants quake and whimper. More red mist came off him as he started to move forward to the crowd. They backed away as far as they could go before getting into the mass of the hungry creatures.

He spoke no further, only smiling and standing above the frightened people. The doctor stood still, shakingly pulling out the amulet of his office and holding it up. The being stood in front of him now, glaring down with a dark look. He was no longer smiling.

"I-In the name of P-Prince Prospero the 12th…and the god Cravus…c-cease these t-terrors…" He stammered in the being's shadow. 

The being snatched out his hand and grabbed the doctor's throat. The arm was clothed with the same dark hue of red, with black buttons and an ebony cravert on its neck. Skulls were hanging from a chain on his belt sash.

But soon the doctor couldn't concentrate on the being's appearance as he was lifted high to the gasps of the crowd. The choking grip made the doctor wheeze and squirm, his boots kicking in the air and his gloved hands beating his strong arm with the amulets. The protection was not working. He soon dropped them and tried to pry the boney fingers off his neck. The hand was gloved, and under the black leather was something cold. The hand seemed to have long claws…or else no skin…but he couldn't tell. The being glared with intensity.

"You have no authority over me. He is not the real master, little beak doctor…" He said quiet calmly. The voice was deep and of a young man, older than himself but not from middle age. It was alluring, husky, dark and foreboding and yet with a seductive tone that would make a woman listening to him find it irresistible.

What then, the doctor thought? Did he mean the gods?

He noticed in his rolling eyes that the beaked creatures were closing in.

The being licked his red lips with his tongue.

"W-who a-are you?" The doctor wheezed.

This creature of death, this monster, this beautiful and deadly man who was a murderer…

The doctor's hat fell off in the wind as the being pulled the beak-masked face of the doctor close. He collided with his cold red chest and gasped. The stench of blood…and roses hit his nostrils as the doctor's mask was disheveled and the incense no longer purifying the air he breathed. He felt the Red Death seep into his body. His face was a mere inch away from the evil head…the skull of blood.

"I am the Red Death. The God of Blood." He hissed quietly. It sounded like a death rattle, the rasp of the dying, the constriction of a victim's vocal chords as death overtook their bodies.

He was turned around, his back pressing against the body of the god as he saw the 7 robed beings raise their arms.

"The 7 Darkness is my bane, the guardians of my unholy duty. Remember them, they help achieve the evil I make." The Red Death spoke above his head. He watched red mist seep and flow swiftly down the hills. 

Down to the panicking innocents.

"And see the beings that look like you. Only they cause death instead of delaying it. They are the Decay, demon hordes, hundreds of them at my command. They are like vultures, carrion beasts, thirsty for blood and suffice on flesh. They worship their own god…I am the god who feeds his followers." He laughed heartily with a darkness in his voice. The doctor whimpered and gasped in horror as The Red Death waved his hand.

Decay, the name of the bird-beasts lunged unto the people and started feasting.

Many more who ran were stopped as the mist suddenly made them fall and writhe in pain. The doctor, helplessly kicking and screaming in the grasp of the monster watched the people either become body parts or moan and twist on the ground, bleeding through the skin in the plague.

"Remember this scene…doctor…remember it." The god hissed in the trembling man's ear.

As he watched them die he felt like a child. Like he was in the grip of a terrifying monster, a bear about to devour him…he felt like a cowering infant under a wolf that was soon to end his innocent life.

He tried not to cry. He watched the scene end, all dead. They had died horrible deaths. Now he felt he might join the town of corpses.

"My minions…strip their faces. Make the bones of their face shine out white amongst the splatter of skin and blood." The Red Death bellowed. The Decay began their work, skinning the faces of women, men, children, farmers…

The witness was held by the neck in the arms of the murderer. The grisly work was done and the Darkness slowly glided down. The doctor was pale and close to fainting, weak and trembling as he assumed he would join the skulled people on the ground.

"You have much work to do now, doctor. You're going to tell your superiors of this…and if you agree I will make you my minion and you will do more with me…" The Red Death turned him to face him, still with a grip upon the man's neck.

"I will n-never s-serve you! I serve the high almighty Prince Prospero!" The doctor said bravely with his finger pointing at the demon's face.

The choke hold got tighter and the being hissed.

"Tell your P_rince of Fools_ that the _King of Blood _gives him little time to live. The end is nearing…" He growled and spoke.

And then red mist of disease seeped into his mask!

He was dropped to the ground, clutching his face and screaming as he was infected. The ground was puddles of red blood and mud. He felt fevered…he felt…mad…insane…obsessed…

"You will go to your foolish prince and tell him that a new god, a devil has come. His name is the Red Death, and he wants nothing but your families death along with the world. Prepare to utter hell reigning down upon this land. Doctor…you have three days to live and pass this on." The Red Death instructed. 

The doctor was fevered and obsessed with his task. He drooled and gruffly laughed, seeing nothing in front of him but red sky, red homes, the red man going into his carriage and driving away, the red Decay flapping after him, and red robed beings disappearing into the air. 

He started shambling onward. His destination was the Prince of Fools. Nothing of his past remained. Only the present state of dying was there.



**A/N: heh, first non-Van Helsing fanfic on this site! Let me tell you…this is going to be a beautiful, epic, fantastic story! **

**Rose von das Roten Tod is German for the Rose of the Red Death. Please, my fellow subscribers, review!**

**Shoys.**


	2. Chapter 2: Blood in the Halls

**A/N: Chapter two! Onward to find out what will happen next…**



"YOU IMBICLES! Why have the villages of the south not given us the amount of grain we need? What happened to them?" Prince Vincent Prospero the 12th yelled.

The nobles, dukes, barons and knights backed away in the dark hall. Their angry prince seemed to be electrified and had his face red with anger. It did not match the gold and blue crown on his head, nor the green and blue royal clothes he wore. His brown hair was falling out of its green ribbon. His fingers teased his goatee.

"My lord Prospero…the reason why grain and cattle assets have fallen is because the villages…are suffering form the plague. I'm sure with more prodding from the peasants we can get more bounty in the coming weeks…" A bowed advisor said before he backed away from the angry, obviously steaming prince!

"The plague? THE PLAGUE!? I didn't know it was in the south!" He angrily stood up and started pacing the rug before his throne, hands behind his back as he stomped in anger.

_This is terrible! All those workers, the food that feeds my table…the money…WHAT IS THIS OUTRAGE!? _The prince of his land, the ruler of all Labaverion could not stay the red creeping hand of the plague, even with the useless beak doctors!

"GET THOSE PEASANTS WORKING! Just a few deaths shouldn't make them lazy! And get their taxes too!" He roared.

The stubborn ruler was clearly not listening to reason. Not could the advisors and nobility in the room have enough courage to stand up to him. The prince was angry, and his wrath was to be feared…

Young Prince Victor Prospero, the 13th, stood in the shadows. He watched his father rant and order the impossible. Course, the 14 year old prince thought the same as his father. Both were insatiably greedy, though he the younger thought his father was more stubborn. His father didn't even care about his son's tastes, his want of the bizarre and maddening entertainment. Then his father called him a bratty bastard. And his son called his father a headstrong jackass. Tis a happy family that inherited these halls. 

He just got out of a spot of mischief and was missing from the maids. His mother didn't care, she was always whining and drunk. Here in the curtains he got to watch a prince at work. Today, work was yelling at imbeciles while he and his father remained ignorant of how big the threat was…

Then the doors of the main hall opened. A gusty wind blew in, rippling the blue and gold banners in the dimly lit room. 

"A messenger to see you sir!" A guard rang out as the doors swung in.

A horrible stench at once filled the hall as a horrible cackling laugh came from the door. Several guards and beak doctors were surrounding a shambling form, a man it appeared, limping and bleeding upon the gold tiles. 

All the noblemen gasped at the atrocious sight of the thing coming in. All sensed the taint of the Red Death upon him! Prince Prospero at the throne backed away and stood in front of his seat. The younger prince just looked curiously at the dying madman. 

"I have come…for the prince…of fools!" The man hacked out. He fell to his knees on the blue rug of the steps to the throne. His mask was white and red speckled on his face and his hat had already fallen off. The amulet of his office, as he was once a beak doctor under the Prince's orders of foundrey, fell to the floor in a puddle of blood. His jagged black robes dripped with blood and the puddle kept growing. All the members of the court had fled to the walls, watching in disgust. A few countesses fainted.

"What is it you want, doctor?" Prospero cleared his throt and wiped the sweat from his brow. He tried to hide the fear of the plague from his face.

"The God…of Blood…requests…your people's utter destruction! Your days in this house are numbered! The secret bride and the spiteful son…and all that is left of the families of the earth…shall perish…in field of blood…no…mercy…" The young man that was possessed and fevered with the aliment wheezed. 

The prince shuddered and watched his men and women. No doubt thy were wondering what the words meant, especially about the words 'secret bride'.

Well, he knew what it meant. Along with his son, who ran out of the curtains and stood by his father in fascination of the dying man.

"See father how he bleeds! Truly a destructive force!" The young prince giggled. His father was too shaken for words. He had never seen a victim of the Red Death.

"Quiet, fool! How dare you speak so naive of bloodshed!" His father growled at his son. Vincent detested his son's ignorance of death and destruction. He was worried he was fascinated with it too much…

With a loud retching gag, the former beak doctor went to his hands and knees, ripped his mask off and started coughing up blood. The guards and the doctors physically grimaced and backed up, some slipping on the blood the man vomited. 

It was a most horrible sight to see. The prince shivered and put his arms up as in defense against the non-contagious version of plague that young doctor was filled with. No man brave enough could stand still as the doctors skin seemed to fall off his body. Even the young prince backed away with a look of fright; he yelped and bounced away and ran behind his father who looked at the convulsing dying body on his steps. The prince, even 14 and training to be a warrior was scared and feeling gruesomely sick, as was everyone in the room, at the doctor now dead and pale in a cascading waterfall of blood.

"I b-believe…that perhaps…we need more beak doctors in the south…wouldn't you agree?" The little prince stammered amidst the screams of panic.

His father stood stiff and cold as a statue. He didn't move, only stare with blankness at the dead man. 

He stopped clinging to the robe of his father as he watched the dim prince, the highest ruler of his country just simple walk away with a stiff step. The prince was in a state of shock to cold, grim reality.

What the prince didn't know that there was another audience to this event. One who stalked in the walls and was waiting for the cover of night to strike in the bedroom of the prince.



**A/N: Uh-oh…OO**

**Read and Review my friends! **

**Shoys.**


	3. Chapter 3: Farm Fire



"Margaret? Did you hear the news? The prince is dead!" Virginia's father said from the wagon. He had just arrived from the village after trading some wheat and paying the taxes. Now he yelled the news to his wife over the din of the hungry chickens, the clacking wheels of the wagon, the cows and the braying donkey that was pulling the cart. 

"Good ridence! A war mongering stubborn prince he was!" Margaret cheered, spraying chicken feed for the birds. "Not much better than his father!"

"Well he was just a lazy fat bastard. I think this prince was worse! We have to pay more taxes because he added more countries to the empire! A shame really, barging in on neighboring lands to just add to the collection…" He sighed as he started hauling a bag of oats to the barn.

Out came running their daughter Virginia with water for the donkey.

Her father smiled as he saw his peasant ray of sunshine run out and tend to the donkey. She smiled so innocently, so happy and beautiful. He prided himself on his adopted daughter, her ability to make him smile. And how smart and caring at such a young age of 7.

"What was the news today father?" She said. He smiled more and went to look at her features. It seemed a shame that her long golden hair should be on a body clothed in a peasant dress and apron. 

"Prince Vincent Prospero the 12th died in his bed. He was killed by the plague and someone had ripped out all of his…well…it's too gruesome to describe for your pretty little ears." He bent down and kissed her sweet forehead, not wanting to make her ill by saying that someone had ripped the prince's bodily organs out of his body and smeared them on the wall in the words, _A new God is born of Blood._

"Alright father! I'll go in the field to water the garden okay? Good!" She bubbled with joy and excitement and kissed his cheek, waving to her mother as she went out past the house to the herb garden.

"Remember dearie! If anyone comes up to you looking ill…stay away! And tell your father!" Her mother called. Worry was in her voice. The herb garden was near the country road and with the plague spreading, she didn't want to get anyone sick of it.

With their daughter gone and the traded goods unloaded, farmer Timothy went to his wife and followed her inside. She was baking some meat pies for supper. He sat down at the wooden table and wiped his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. His wife and loving mother to their precious daughter started putting away the flour and spices she had set out. The pies were still baking.

"Margaret…I've heard the village of Tristdale has succumbed to the plague…and the village near us had a passerby coming through, a plagued beak doctor they drove away. Now the bartender had died from the plague and a few other patrons won't last the night. If I would have known, I would not have gone to the village for supplies." Timothy sighed and worry went to his face. Without Virginia around he seemed so unhappy. 

Margaret looked at him with fear and worry.

"The Red Death won't get us…we're far away! We mustn't go to the village! We'll all die!" She gasped. 

"There is also something else. The villagers heard from the dying beak doctor that there is now a new god. He described a tall dark red haired god dressed in red in a carriage…saying he was going to hunt down everyone and spread the plague like wildfire. That this god was a skull faced bloodsucker, and we should all worship him for mercy in the afterlife! That we should call him The Red Death, the God of Blood. Now the doctor could have been hallucinating or…" He bit his lip. 

Margaret started massaging her husband's shoulders. He took his hat off and sighed trying to relax.

"Are you saying that the Gods of Death created another one to kill us all?" She replied with a shaking voice.

"There has been no other sickness so deadly, evil, and corrupted. Blood, fevers, chills, rotting skin, dizziness…and kills in the half hour. How could something like that get here unless the Gods willed it?" His fingers gripped the brown hat and feather. He heard the chickens and his daughter giggling ion the garden. If the plague got here, or the god himself, all would perish. Especially the daughter.

When she was given to the family by some noble guards with orders for him and her to protect, raise, and keep her away from the Prosperos should they ever know of her, he felt blessed. As a baby she was an angel, and she didn't even know who her real parents were. In fact, he didn't know. Only he was given money to help support the child. The family was happy, and still is…slightly.

But could he protect her from the plague? The killing evil that threatened to destroy this isolated farm and such innocence?

"Then should we move?" She said softly.

"We could go north, but the plague would get there eventually. It is kpicking up speed. We would have to keep running and wandering until we reach the cold lands. Perhaps the freezing snow would stopper it and we would be safe in the artic. And if we stay here, the disease might pass over. We are a small farm in the middle of nowhere; we have only one small little-used road to town. We would be able to eat and live here." Timothy didn't want to wander. 

"But if there is a monster that is killing everyone, he would find us! We stay here and we'll starve or die a horrible death in this house! Even the beak doctors cannot completely cure a person! We must leave to the north and flee this evil!"

"Remember our duty! If we seek shelter under the shadows of nobles and keep moving, the prince might find her! We were given stern orders not to let her be seen; remember last year, when there was news that the prince was looking for a beautiful blonde young woman who should be approximately 6 years old…Virginia is wanted by the Prosperos for some reason, and we mustn't let him get her. We wander, and she is taken into the halls of the unlawful, lazy terrible monarchy!"

"But Timothy…if we don't leave here, she will die. And she is too young to taste evil and death. It would be worse for her and us to…to be with the plague." She leaned down to her husband and sat in a chair, holding him in her arms. She did not want to die. He did not want to die. Virginia of course didn't want to die.

He sighed, holding his tearful wife in his arms. They had worked so hard building this farm, they worked so hard raising their daughter and living life. But it would be better to live.

"We will start packing after dinner. By tomorrow afternoon, we shall leave for the castle of Baron Douglass, and from there we will go to the next noble's land, and so forth till we are farther and farther away."

They kissed, hoping for a better life. Then she got up, wanting to keep kissing him but the pies was done. He closed his eyes and rested, for tonight would be a long night of getting ready to leave.

Then he smelled the scent of something other than pies. Smoke and blood.

His wife screamed, looking around as she saw something very wrong.

Their house was set on fire with torches by the hands of what appeared to be hissing beak doctors.



**A/N; Burning? BURNING!? WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT!? Review and I'll update!**

**Shoys.**


	4. Chapter 4: Carrige of Gilded Death

**A/N: At last an update!**



She sighed amongst the grass.

Truly she felt wonderful. Happiness was hers on the farm and work was play. The late afternoon sky was turning into evening and the weeds felt wonderful caressing her toes. She giggled as she watched her foot play with a dandelion between her big toe and the rest of them.

She couldn't' wait for supper, meat pies were her favorite! And she hoped to head to the village tomorrow to buy some ribbons. She had worked as an apprentice for the seamstress in the village occasionally and earned some little coins. She wanted to buy blue, and yellow, and white ribbons.

Maybe tonight she could practice with her mother on sewing! Yes, that would be fun and good! If she was going to get married someday she would need some skills.

She was very eager to learn.

"By the Goddess of Womanhood, I'll be the best seamstress in the south! And…and I'll have a tailor husband! With some goats and plenty to eat! And I can have ribbons by the dozen in my hair!" She laughed and smiled. She clutched in her hand the amulet of the goddess that most young girls wore. A carved wooden medallion painted with white, pink and rainbow hair. She studied the features of the goddess, a naked woman with ribbons, a flowing white skirt and her hair long and proper in the traditional ponytail. In one hand was a cook-pot with sewing supplies, in the other was holding a babe at her breast and with chains at her feet. It was to show her servitude to men in the sense they were stronger and superior in form. But the shackles were ribbons, showing the beauty of womankind. She remembered her mother telling her that the goddess used to have chains, but now that women are freer and in higher positions, the priesthood changed it to sensible realism. Women can be powerful. At her feet was a scroll of knowledge. Her partner the God of Manhood was worn around boy's necks. Virginia smiled at the goddess that protected her.

"I'll be a great woman. And when I'm old and worn, I'll be respected. I'll be respected! A leader!" She said. Then she sighed, closing her eyes and sprawled in the grass with dreams of greatness in her head.

Something didn't feel right.

"I can make you respected. I can give you greatness." Said a deep voice.

She opened her eyes and gasped. Standing, leaning against the shady tree down a few feet away was a dark shape, cloaked with red. A large pointed red hat created a shadow over his face, save for the red eyes that glowed. His hair was back in a ponytail and a black gold ribbon floated with the breeze that passed through.

She stared. He was tall and cloaked. Behind him on the road was a red carriage with gilded skulls and with a team of red, horned horses. She sat up and drew back, clutching her face in horror at the vicious creatures at the carriage. She had never seen horses so evil and terrifying, nor a carriage with metal bones around it, nor such a stranger with a beautiful, dangerous voice.

"Who are you? Whatever you are, I don't talk to strangers! I'll get my dad!" She stammered and quickly stood up, holding up her apron and dress to be ready to run.

"There is no need. I have come to offer you the power you seek. For you see, I am a God…in a sense my dear." He reached his hand out and tilted his head, trying to appear less frightening. The cape moved away to reveal the red and gold jacket and finery. A slight red mist was about him.

"A…G-God…You're a God…of w-what?" She believed it. He must be part of the Gods of Death…Or of Light?

"I may appear it and posses their powers, I am very close to being one, but I am not. Dear Virginia, I am a nobleman of the highest importance and will soon become king." He moved out of the shadow of the tree showing the gold on him glint in the afternoon sun. "I have made a stop here to take you with me to the throne."

"I'm just a peasant girl. I want to be a great seamstress not a queen! And there can't be a king! You know…there's a curse…" She saw his implements of nobility, and the feel of a god. He said he wasn't. "Are you a baron? Duke, Count, Boyar?"

"I am the king." He softly said. He said it so musically and beautiful her heart fluttered even though it was gripped with fear.

"There is no king." She whispered. He stepped forward with his dark pointed red boot pressed into the grass. She gasped as she saw the grass around the foot…turn brown and die.

She turned her head to run, only to see her home down the path on fire!

Screaming she tried running to her home that was burning but tall, black shrouded beak doctors blocked her path. She almost tripped, staring at their black eyes, their cackling beaks and the claws and feathers outreached. The dark evil that they were prevented her from running to the farm.

She shivered, standing and backed up from the ring of black demons. They were not human. The beaks were part of them. Monster, vicious creatures, terrifying black things with teeth and blood from their tongues and claws. To a little girl…she had never, ever seen any creatures like this.

A cold chill was behind her. A dark shadow was over her and she turned, too frozen to the stop to see him standing three feet away.

"There is much you don't know about Virginia. I can show you the way. Let me take you into the carriage…and you will have a new, better life…a life of love and goodness…" He spoke again, beautiful as before only sterner.

She hugged her arms and cowered, afraid of the being who offered his gloved red hand to her. He was burning her home, everything, her ribbons and toys and the money that could have helped her. He said he was a king…of what?

"Come to me Virginia. Come and you will know everything." The door of the carriage was wide open revealing a comfy interior. The beasts crowded more, making her take a few steps forward away from the hissing and the gore from their maws.

"MOTHER!! FATHER!! HELP!!" She wailed. This was utterly terrifying…it darkened her mind…the blood and evil, the man that seemed that he might harm her…

"They have been eaten." He simply said.

"They…ate…my…p-parents…" Turning around, that was why the black things were bloody.

She had never believed things could be so strange and evil, to eat humans.

"You have no more life here. You can make a new one with me…Come inside, we are waiting." The being's offered palm moved more, a gentle position he held.

All she thought in those moments was that now she was orphaned. Now she could never achieve her dream because she had no income, no home, no money or food. She would die of the plague in the streets of the village or the woods to be eaten if she wandered there to find food and warmth.

He could make her happy. But now, now she saw that he was the reason why she had no parents now. He was kidnapping her; he destroyed her family and home so he could have her! Why should she be with him?

Yet the carriage seemed so inviting. There seemed to be a sort of gentleness around him as he just stood, a frightening looking figure who had a gentle repose he took. She continued staring at him.

The gaze was broken when the Red Death backed away and snarled. He set his eyes ahead and she turned, seeing why he started running.

A cavalry of horsemen were stampeding across the wheat field! They had lances, swords, guns and banners, the banners blue and gold in the breeze as they yelled. She started running to the road.

The Cavalry General with his plumed helmet and flashing sword charged his men at the fiend. What he saw was a cloaked man with hordes of Decay on the embankment. They were fleeing to the carriage of red, the red man leaping into the carriage door and the vehicle quickly speeding across the rutty field to the road.

He made a signal with his hand outstretched through the dust and most of his horsemen left him to pursue the carriage at top speed. He and his officials came with him to the burning farmhouse.

He had thought this was just a routine sweep ordered from the advisors of the late prince, but clearly with mentions of a being in terrible human form here, he thought that was a joke. Now, he saw indeed that it wasn't.

His concentration was ebbed away when he saw the crying young girl.

He turned and stopped, the horse neighing as it stopped. The other generals went to the farmhouse. He was to deal with the golden, beautiful darling child weeping on her knees.

He assumed this was a peasant girl from the home that was now turning to ash. He realized the brown dressed girl was in front of the skull faced man. He shuddered from her sorrow and the sudden caring for this creature. And that the creature he knew was the creator of The Red Death was about to get her, most likely kill her. He did not know of the situation that happened before between her and the fiend.

He swung off the horse and he moved slowly towards the girl. She was wailing in her hands with her ragged blonde hair around her. He stood in his armor and took off his helmet as he bent down to a knee.

She sniffled and looked up. The kind man with the black hair and the mustache was looking down at her. His gauntlet hands went to her shoulders to lightly rest there. She immediately saw the symbol on his breastplate and knew she could trust him. Yet she was still wary…

"T-the man k-killed my family." She choked out a sob as she lunged to his arms. He hugged her against the cold metal of his chest while she sobbed anew upon the steel. Like his own child, he patted her back and picked her up into his arms. He would have to deal with this child himself.

"He's gone now, there's nothing to fear…I will take care of you now." He cooed softly as he brought her upon his horse. He trotted to the smoldering ruins of her peasant hut, and she looked onward in tears at the loss of the entire world she knew.

She stared deeply at the wreckage. The charred body parts in what was the kitchen. The brick oven blackened. The wood now charcoal and the rugs and beds ash. Several of the generals were poking around what was her room; she watched them pick up her wooden box, black and charcoal by now. She saw them open it to only find the embers of ribbons and her burned amulets. Nothing was left. Nothing sacred, nothing of her life.

She looked up at him, the man holding her tightly to him as she cried. She saw kindness and love and worry. The general under the rule of the not-so-kind prince had kindness. She felt puzzled as she knew that yes, she knew he was kind. She knew he could trust him. She knew he'd help her.

She felt sleepy. It was as if the entire burden was placed upon her heart and she felt tired and weighted down like her eyelids. This was something terrible to a young girl who had just lost everything, and knowing secrets the enemy of the land had told her. She knew he wanted her with him. But she didn't need him. The prince's regimes and workers would hopefully send her off to an orphanage or something, to hopefully be adopted.

It was easy for her to sleep. She put all the worries and shock away and suddenly slept. The general smiled down at her amongst the wreckage. He knew she had been through a lot. She could have contacted the plague as could he and many others. He hoped he could have her. He wanted to ease the pain she would feel tomorrow. The pain of no father or mother, or anything at all was gone forever. He wanted this child for some reason. He felt important and proud he was comforting a young girl. A girl who saw Death.

The Red Death watched her slumber. He would take her another day. When she would be more mature…then she will be exposed to his means forever.



**A/N: Ooooooh dear…poor her…some PLOT is happening! You can just FEEL it…**

**Shoys.**


	5. Chapter 5: Raising a Bride

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Hope you're enjoying this story so far! **



Surrounded by advisors and his trusted buffoons of politicians, he made his way to the abbey. The abbey was the place for cleansing, blessed by the sacrament of the Goddess of Healing. The dark corridors of the secluded place seemed foreboding. Just like the young prince's home.

He was going to be coroneted Prince Prospero the 13th of Labaverion tomorrow. Today, he was going to do some business, some business that was passed on to him.

He reached the inner sanctum. General Friedrich was sitting with his wife Dulcinia and their young son Henry. Seated on the padded brown chairs the family was awaiting the fate of the young peasant girl. The prince knew that she was rescued…that was all that mattered to him. They thought she was just a nobody, a sweet darling nobody…but really there was another hidden agenda the general must be told about secretly. It was necessary to secure the prince's own bloodline.

The general stood up, in his noble finery and saluted before he bowed. _Ahh…to have the respect of the most boring of men…_he thought at this. The power he had, the intuition and power to make his realm beautiful, populated with crops and people, which in turn gave him the money to satisfy anything he desired…

"An honor to be in your presence, my lord." The kind general bowed and held his hat.

"Lord Friedrich, General of The Army, and half-baron to the lands of Medictail…it was certainly a kind and loving gesture to take in this peasant girl, who is also a witness." The prince smiled warmly. The general could still see mischief however in the young man's smile.

"A witness indeed. She has told everything of her encounter. You must know by now, about what we are dealing with in this constant war against him." The general replied.

"Indeed. You will lead the armies and search and destroy this menace, and destroy any contaminated villages. The orders are too dire for a messenger to tell you. In person, I believe perhaps it would be better."

Friedrich nodded. It was a grave responsibility. He would be constantly in harms way in dealing with the evil being that was slowly choking the country.

"There is another thing that I must discuss with you, privately general. A matter not to be heard by anyone else besides you and your wife." The prince's eyebrow raised to show there was an urgent matter to be discussed.

"Of course. There is an empty room down the hall." Friedrich's wife sat still looking with worry at her husband as he and the young prince went down the hall, locked themselves into the dark room with a table and a chair, and sat down.

The prince sat down, stiffly, avoiding the dust he saw in the air through the trickle of sunlight of the dusty old window.

Friedrich sat patiently, wondering what secret, and very private information the prince-to-be could give him regarding the girl.

"You are wondering why we are here, secret, protected and safe. Why this must not be known to anyone unless I give you permission to speak of the girl's fate and past." The 14 year old moved in, speaking quietly and gravely. "Do you swear so under Almut?"

"I swear." He held up his left hand, swearing under the name of their highest god.

"Alright general. You were the most trusted and loyal of my father's regime. Therefore I trust you and your fondness for Virginia to take care of her. You know the Dukes of Mauchdom?"

"Their line ended unfortunately with your mother and the rest of the family perished from the lack of a heir. They were the principle family that the Prosperos, your family, always marry from. However you need to fiend the next noble lineage of family now to be engaged to. The Dukes of Mauchdom are dead." Friedrich replied.

"They are not. Yes, it was a great tragedy to the monarchy, but in fact there is an heir. In fact, an heiress. The last Duchess was murdered by her husband, and in turn he committed suicide. She was burned to death. But you see, she was burned so that there could be no trace that she had given birth to a child. She died pregnant they thought. But we the Prosperos knew that the child was sent to live with a family of peasants far, far away so that she could never be married to the Prosperos. The Duchess did not want her child to be wedded to a family of 'rats' as she called us, which is absorbed and a pompous lie."

"You can't mean to tell me that Virginia, is the Duchess of Mauchdom?" Friedrich was flabbergasted and stunned. The unchanging face of the young prince didn't help him. His fingers teased his goatee as he thought hard and tried to believe what he just heard.

"Yes she is. And she is going to marry me, as all the heirs of Mauchdom have been doing for traditions since the beginning of this kingdom. And you're going to raise her. She will never know till her wedding night when I shall tell her." At this the prince truly smiled.

He was stunned. This was the same mischievous brat that set the curtains on fire in the meeting rooms; this was the same family he had served, and sometimes didn't want to, to the whims of his father who was a stubborn war-mongering idiot. Now he was to raise a bride for an ungrateful wretched boy. He dreaded to see what this brat would grow up into. He speculated perhaps a spoiled man, or a mad warrior, or a perverted man who would sleep with all the daughters of the counts and barons, let along Virginia would have to visit and be visited through the years by her future husband, a nasty twit.

"I suppose then I will have her engaged to you because I am such an honorable general that the prince wants to marry his daughter?" Friedrich this time raised an eyebrow.

"A good plan isn't it, general? All would know that a general's daughter is to be married to me…and then, magically, the information would get out she is the lost duchess after the wedding day! All would be well! She would have her proper title, be queen, and have plenty of little Prospero's too! That is a fate many girls dream off…better than her peasant upbringing, better than being in a general's family…isn't it marvelous?" The prince was giddy with excitement like a little boy.

"It is. I guess it is for the best. She would know her proper history, the engagement would show goodwill to the peasant folk, and my daughter would be living the best when she marries. When shall the date be my majesty?" Friedrich rather sighed his response.

"Sometime after her 18th birthday. By then I would the pleasant age of 26, ready to gain full princeship! I will be a true prince tomorrow, don't worry…but a prince can't be a prince without a princess, nor without the birth os a little prince or a little princess…but do you not see?" The prince sprung up with a step and started pacing the floor with a smile.

"What?" The general failed to see.

"You remember the prophecies, don't you? There are a few remember, from around a 100 years ago. One, that there shall be no king until the real king returns. Two, that to gain full kingship the last of the line of the second family be reunited in spiritual matrimony with the king. Two prophecies are you know…and the first one is responsible to why there are no kings of this land. Only princes! No king Prospero…prince Prospero! And no one knows who the lost king is so squat that!" His hand slapped his clenched fist.

"True, true my lord." The general watched the immature adult pace and plot and talk.

"So…if I am to become king, I will have to do a spiritual matrimony with the last of the line of the second family. And…if you haven't figured it out yet, the Mauchdom's ARE the second family, and Virginia is the last of the line! If I marry her, marry her body, her mind, her soul and own her I can be legally declared…king! For the first time in 118 years!" A laugh followed his victorious speech.

Friedrich was in the midst of a plot. Yes, it did seem good to actually have a king of this land. If only it wasn't this prince.

"Congratulations on the hatching of the plot my majesty. I hope we will have the wedding and marriage as plan…if we survive the plague in 18 years." Friedrich stood up, bowed and rose, looking down at the blue dressed boy smiling with cleverness.

"As do I. that is why a cure must be found! Otherwise I shall be a king of dead beggars and counts. How then could me and my darling wife survive without tax money?" The prince chuckled and opened the door. "You will keep her past a secret. However it shall be known that she is engaged to me. You are doing a good service to your country, general. We shall schedule tea time next week. Good luck with Virginia for me!" The prince chuckled as he went out to the waiting visors and the confused wife, along with her son bouncing on her lap. He followed, sighing and following till he stood by his respected seat, clutching his hat in his hands as the prince and the group left the building.

"Well Friedrich? When will you explain the jolly mischief mood the young prince is in?" Dulcinia spoke.

"Tonight, not in the company of Henry here." He managed a smile and ruffled his son's hair. Henry giggled and got off his mother's lap to lean against his father's leg.

"What stuff?" he spoke innocently enough. His father smiled.

"You'll find out soon enough. Come, let's take Virginia home. They should be done with her now." Friedrich sighed and held his sons hand, walking towards the door to inside. Dulcinia followed inside.

He stared at his sleeping young duchess, laid on a cot clutching a pillow with her sweet fingers.

He felt terrible now he knew he was sentencing such a creature, such an innocent woman that was hidden because she was not meant to be married to him. Now he was forced, by duty, to raise a queen for his lord. To groom, secretly, a woman for a rather unwelcoming man.

He hoped this would be very easy and quick.

**A/N: Bride-growing? That certainly isn't very nice…**

**Many thanks to my pitiful amount of reviewers! Please, review some more the the pitiful amount will grow to 'sad-amount' status!**

**Shoys.**


	6. Chapter 6: Art Trip

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: The plot…has BEGUN! And…stuff…**

**Thanks to my small amount of reviewers for reviewing! **



The nefarious plot had begun.

In time, in the whittling of ages from their god's hands as they chipped away at the world of ages, it had now reached 3 years. The general's family, the Morchiefs, was happy.

Young Virginia was prancing around to the art museum. The capital city and the homes and offices of the noble and the intelligent was all she knew, for she knew she was adopted…but she forgot where from.

General Friedrich regretted, secretly, that she was cleansed of her mind. She was the same as before, still wanting to sew as a profession and entertain herself with the institutes of learning and pleasure around her. He raised her so far to remember, that everyone is a person, be nice and sweet. He loved her, she was so sweet, as his wife who too carried that trait. He loved that, and he never wanted her to become snobbish as many royal girls her age.

Today he was on leave. The Red Death was fairly closer since three years ago, the city here seemingly even wealthier because it charged more taxes to the poorer class to make more medical institutions, more to religion and more to the rich to fortify their abbeys and castles. Money was needed to pay the hospitals in the cities and such; money was needed to mask the noble's eyes.

The general at least had money and prestige enough to be part of the court…he was of course present around the Prince, seeing that the young man would be marrying his daughter someday and often had luncheon with her, family and Prospero. She was to be groomed to like him. He knew though that his daughter was a bit unhappy with him. He was at this time 17, and she 10. It didn't matter in the world here that they had age differences, only it mattered that they would get married in the future. And to make it a bit of a happy marriage, dinners and parties with them both were needed to be established friends. Twas the way of the world.

He didn't like it. He didn't want the prince to marry his darling. She was too sweet and innocent to be happy with a wild, brat of a prince. Worse, since he had grown, he was more mature and had a wicked nature. He was spoiled, yes, but he knew how to handle power…he was a formidable, powerful, clever, vicious adolescent. And he liked his women. Plenty of them, his mistresses following him as he sang poems to the listening, if uneasy young Virginia.

But he couldn't stop it. He watched her and his son Henry walk up the steps to the museum. He hoped she would never lose that innocent charm and happiness. If she wedded Prospero, and found out the truth of her past and her real parents…it would destroy her. She had been raised that a king would be good…but nothing about the purpose of a princess…or queen for that matter.

"Friedrich…" Dulcinia cooed in his ear as they moved along the stairs. "What are you thinking?"

"I've been wondering…will she ever stay our sweet little girl? Will she keep that charm? I fear for her mind…" He had been constantly worried about it since the day of the talk with the prince. What would happen if he succumbed to the Red Death? What would happen if he died? Who would encourage her to think for herself, to follow her heart to what is good and right?

"You keep bringing that up. Don't worry…she is strong, she doesn't know, and of course you'll be there to help her…the prince is not that bad, at least he loves her and will give her a place of prestige! Us the lowly Morchiefs have our daughter to soon become a Princess! And then, as you know, she will be revealed as queen!" His wife smiled and held his gloved hand. He looked at her with a trickle of hope…but just a little.

"But…what will happen when she is all grown up? Will she be strong enough to resist the charms of ill behavior? I fear for her mind…I fear terribly. If she marries him she would either be sad or become like him, even if she doesn't like him, which I know she doesn't." Their conversation was private, no one could even hear. The courtiers and persons were all chatting and talking around the main room. All would be quiet of course in the galleries but here, here there was noise and running children where Virginia and Henry tried to join.

"She will be strong. You and I will tell her to survive; we will make her strong and steadfast in the way of good. Then perhaps she can change our world when she is queen. Maybe then, she will be strong enough to vanquish The Red Death. You know it is he who torments her dreams." She whispered. He nodded, glad in the strength of his beautiful wife.

"Come now, let us enjoy this day. Tomorrow you'll be heading out to chase on a new trail of the death demon. Think of your family today." She pleaded. Looking at her, he smiled and kissed her powdered cheek. Indeed it would do no good to gain some proper culture and fun at the royal art museum when he was thinking for the not-too happy future for his beloved. He spent almost everyday worrying inside. He was worried more about her and her welfare than the menace that overshadowed everyone's lives, rich or poor.

At least he was sure that the Red Death hadn't reached the capital. It was ever closer, already plans for rationing food inside this city were under way to be reviewed by the prince. Taxes were high…and balls and galas were more abundant.

Shaking his head, he set to clear his mind and just think of looking at art and pictures in a relaxed atmosphere, free from the taint of The Red Death. He watched his daughter run up to him with ribbons in her hair and a sweet blue dress. Henry held her hand, looking up at him. He was proud of them both. Two healthy children. And he hoped they would stay healthy and live a long, rich rewarding life. Hopefully by then there will be a cure for the plague.

Hopefully. The present will have to do now. If all was well his son would be a great general as he is, and his daughter will be a beloved queen. Hopefully, if they all should live that long.



**A/N: Oh what an uneventful trip to the art museum…well, so we think so far…-Vincent Price cackle-**

**Read and review my lovelies!**

**Shoys.**


	7. Chapter 7: Statue of the Macabre

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Beware….be very very bewarey of evil things in art museums…-shifty eyes- **



"Come on Virginia!" Henry called down the gallery.

"Coming!" She giggled and jogged down, quietly, in the art gallery. She was just looking at a painting of flowers and fruit in the room of Still Life; she arrived to where her brother was.

She let out an excited gasp, seeing the sculpture room at its best. Statues and busts of ladies and lords, gods and goddess, animals and castles, this room was the largest. Henry was looking at a statue of a proud bear while she stood looking around.

She loved art. Painting, sculpting, playing music…whichever, art was her joy in life. Now she was surrounded by it, looking around and enjoying herself. There were sculptures from hundreds of years ago. There were some modern ones, old, new, decades ago…all beautiful and noble.

She was glad he was her brother. He was her biological brother, along with her biological parents. Yes, of course they were her parents, of course they were. Were they?

She didn't know. She had forgotten form the spells and incense she was under when she was seven. She only knew that yes, she was the real daughter of General Friedrich and Lady Dulcinia. Henry was born two years before her. He was her older brother, her great brothers she played sailboats with on the pond and hung around at the balls and dinners at guest's homes.

Now she was exploring on her own the museum.

She only knew happiness. Flowers and money, good food and education…that was her life.

She didn't know that it was all going to be shattered today.

She was famed, yes, for being betrothed to the prince, but yet she seemed pretty average, normal if but being the sweetest girl in all the land. She lived a normal life, and thought things a normal girl should always think in the society. She was learning skills and ideals on how to become a princess. She was groomed on only thinking on happiness and the life of the people. She already learned a few languages and excelled on leadership and strategy roles and classes. She was getting ready to rule the land, not knowing she would become the prophesied queen!

As the innocent turned the corner, through a darker, dustier hall she went into another gallery.

She glanced at the title, written in marble above the archway.

The Hall of the Macabre.

This did not hinder her. She was curious and constantly trying to learn something, specifically if it dealt with knowing the ways and wonders of the world whether good or bad. Though until that point she preferred the goodness of man.

Not the horrors, the evil thoughts that were brewed here from the minds of the smart and insane. This place was filled with the other side of thinking, the dark of art…all of forbidden desire, terror, fear, lust and the demons of the Death Gods was painted and sculpted in this very room. This gallery was so deep and kept unnoticed in this building that there was no windows to the outside world, so the light was by the dark yellow light of candles and gas lights.

She entered, standing very still, slowly scanning the room. She had never seen such grotesque sculptures of ebony, such thick paintings of lurid scenes, of old artifacts of the Death Gods from eons ago. Demons, sins, blood and gore, a depressed man gouging his throat out…

She had never seen such things before. She had never known the realities of darkness, evil, barbaric and deathly sadness. Nothing, nothing at all, it was hidden from her. Her family feared that she would fear the Red Death. There was always hope that it will be destroyed…that he shall be dead, that he isn't a true God.

There on a pedestal was her worst nightmare.

A tall, dark foreboding statue stood. It was of a figure, a dark shining metal, or was it bright glossy stone, of a man with a cape. He stood with it over his face with only dark, glittering eyes from sunken eye sockets. It was of a skull, of the same stone or metal of the statue. It had a hat with an ebony feather, a clawed hand with long, long fingernails…talons more like it, and talons of a articulated and boney hands, outstretched from the confines of a artful sleeve and lace, all sculpted and black.

She stared and couldn't breathe for a few seconds. When she was, she was gasping and going into shock, staring at the statue. Who could dare make such a thing? It was an unheard of thing to sculpt…

Was it an altered macabre version of a Death God?

Or was it in fact…not even a statue?

Now she knew. Now she remembered the ominous figure that sometime showed up in her dreams. Now she saw her memory, he hidden fear appear before her and shift and move.

For the black figure's stretched hand moved and shifted, it's stringy boney hand curling and wiggling it's fingers. The eyes of black glowed red as the skull-faced entity moved, tilting his hatted head. And smoke, black smoke was rolling off him.

The black smoke was the dark covering, the ebony that masked his red clothes, cape and hat. His ponytail of beautiful silky red hair moved and his face…white, a pale skull covering his even paler white skin. His lips were black and white, like a skull's teeth. Menace and evil stirred the air as the smoke dissipated into dust at his red pointed boots.

Now he stood. Now he once again offered his almost skeletal hand to the frightened girl.

"Come to me. Come to The Red Death"



**A/N: Prepare for screaming next chapter! However if you DON'T review it might not come! GRR.**

**Shoys.**


	8. Chapter 8: Fall of Father

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Now…the cliff-hanger blues shall end! **



Friedrich was just trying to enjoy some art when he heard his daughter. It was very high pitched, light and full of blood curdling terror. Her shriek made everyone's hair stand on end as the shrill girl scream continued.

He pulled out his sword and ran towards the scream. Dulcinia stood with her hands clutching her face, fearing for her darling, the Prince's betrothed and smitten with fear. For after her shriek ended, there was a dark, deep cackle, vile laughter ringing throughout the stone building.

Panting, he ran and ran with fear making his heart beat and beat faster, and the laughter getting louder and louder as he went through the halls. It was getting darker as he passed galleries of questionable criteria and darker sorts, with less fire and light to replace the lack of windows.

"Dad!" His son Henry ran by him, coming from a still-life gallery. He too was frightened for he knew it was his sister in trouble.

"Get back! There might be a dangerous criminal…don't come with me!" He showed his glittering rapier and his son however did not wish to leave as the evil laughing and sobbing sister was heard louder.

"I'm going to protect her! Dad, She's my sister!" Henry yelled back.

Friedrich scowled, but he didn't have time to yell at him to get back.

They had just turned the corner of the hallways to look in the Gallery of the Macabre.

There was red smoke, plague he knew around. A man stood tall and evil with a skull face, dark lips and red hair with a hat. His boney hands had Virginia in his arms, where in her blue dress she was kicking and screaming, sobbing with some sort of maddening look in her eyes.

Now she remembered. Now she was in his clutches, his eyes closed as he nuzzled her crying child face.

"There there my darling…you're with me now…shhh…" He purred, softly seeming to mock the emotion of comfort. His hands held her like she was a soft china doll. She was limp and terrified obviously to her wits end.

Henry was still with fear. He had never seen something to terrible, something so evil…something so unearthly, ever in his young life.

As for Lucinda's foster father…he had seen him before. He tried to engage in combat with him, he always tried in his battles and raids to heal and fight the demons of the far countryside. But now his daughter was in the creature's arms, as a tool and such for evil…for it was The Red Death.

The Red Death had always been after her in her dreams, but never anything like this. He was going to collect her sooner…but now, he had her. He had an innocent little girl against his vile demon body. He was trying to comfort her, a beast, a creature of hell that was hugging his daughter!

"LET HER GO!" Friedrich was angry. Rage, utter rage and the urge to protect his charge was pumping through his veins.

The creature, the God of Blood many called him raised his head with glaring red eyes. He stared, stared deep at the general with Virginia sobbing in his arms.

The Red Death had no right to take that child away with him.

"You are a fool. I will take her to my home where she will be raised and kept well, and be used for my ultimate victory. Until then, you must either live or die. Get out." The thing gave a velvety voice. He sounded somewhat young…somewhat old…or neither.

"Let…her…go." He growled again.

"No." He hissed this time.

Immediately without rational thinking, he jumped as he slashed his sword. Running as fast as he could he leaped and steadied his sword, slashing at the face of the skulled monster!

It roared, rearing back in the mist and cape as the sword only by inches would have sliced his face. Immediately Friedrich with his warrior training pulled Virginia out of his arms.

Henry blinked a few times as his father landed on his feet, coughing form the mist and carried his crying daughter out and away, running with the roaring Red Death behind him.

"RUN!" He yelled.

Henry got the hint. He was running as fast as his young boy legs could. Friedrich was behind him with Virginia in a daze of madness and hopefully temporary insanity.

Already most of the people in the galleries were gone, all outside running to their carriages fleeing the evil. Troops had been notified but would take 10 minutes or so to get there or less.

Henry and Friedrich were panting, finally going past the galleries and light to out the doors. They bolted down the steps three at a time. Henry stole a glance at his sister clinging to his father's back.

Her eyes were wide open and seemed to be in a state of mental shock. Tears streamed from her face. He heard her whimpering loudly like her mind was in some sort of tragic pain. Friedrich was with a contorted look of concern on his face as they ran.

The doors blasted open behind them. The Red Death, shrouded with red smoke and his tall stature stood at the top of the stairs as Friedrich and Henry caught their breath at the bottom.

It was afternoon soon going into evening. Perhaps 60 people or more was outside from the art museum and the markets and shops around the highway road.

Not one of them seen the plague in all his glory. They had never expected to see a god in their midst.

"So you see me at last…if only Prospero was here to have his knickers shake…" The crowd nearest to him heard him whisper.

He gave a bow as the crowd was motionless, staring at the fiend who dared appear in the midst of their city! They only knew that the plague was far away, killing villages as nobles piled and stored their wealth and food.

"Good afternoon, citizens of the scourge. I am the new god, The Red Death. I have come here particularly to do a few things. One, to steal the Prince's betrothed. The other, to show you how ruthless, powerful, and unmerciful I really am to the ignorant in this city. People, I give you till her 18th birthday if she should escape from my grasp today to spare yourself future suffering by killing yourselves and your fellow man."

They were all stupidities. Kill them? All humankind kill themselves? He, the unstoppable demon or whatever he was, for they still refused to call him a god, end their own lives?

Friedrich had enough. His daughter needed to be safe and go to a hospital.

He took off running towards his carriage. Inside were Dulcinia and Henry, already jumped in. Friedrich tossed Virginia to his wife, holding her as he leaped unto the seat and pulled the reins.

The carriage was one of the fastest, most streamlined ever built. It took off in no time down the walled paved highway. Virginia heard the loud sounds of the slick metal wheels on the concrete, and the clatter of the horse's hooves.

There hadn't been much time to think clearly except of terror. Except of hidden memories suppressed by the priest's herbs and hypnotism. Except for those memories to unfold. Except to be held, touched, close to the hot, warm body of the being of her fears that held her tenderly and spoke with a soft velvet tone. Who had no heartbeat at all but blood coursed through his veins.

Blood was his elixir. Blood was his excitement, his tasteful dish he drank. He smelled of it, his breath was rank with decay yet he looked beautiful and evil. He looked like a man with a skull mask, and fine, red clothing that seemed to possess a life of their own. A life of artful macabre to commit horrors and evil.

The dark of the carriage drowned out the sounds of outside. Her mind was closing to listen only to her memory of voices and her racing heartbeat. She never knew she was adopted and that her family was not her own. She was a peasant and was born a peasant, and the figment of fear, the plague of her mind in the dark of night was this being.

That certain being just ran his claws into the carriage, latching onto the upholstery and wood. The inhabitants inside all screamed, watching as another was thrust through and gripping tightly. The carriage wobbled with its new weight, as The Red Death tried to drag it down.

Friedrich turned to look, gasping in horror that the fiend had grabbed the carriage! It clawed up to the top of the vehicle, crouched and on all fours like an animal, it's hands in human and talons sticking out of it's boots. It snarled, it's hair red and wild whipping in the wind along with it's dark red cape, cravart and black feathered hat.

There was no such beast known. A beast that had the shape of a man with wild fire eyes.

"Pull over." It hissed.

"Henry…come out here…" Friedrich cooley replied. Certainly he realized perhaps a demon in the shape of a man would have some negotiable qualities.

Henry, already terrified slipped through the small door, which was conviently sized for a young 11 year old boy to the driving seat, looking up puzzled but brave for a child.

"Dad? What's going on?" He whimpered.

"Just hold the reins and keep on driving no matter what!" His father yelled. Friedrich clambered unto the top of the carriage pulling out his sword. The green emeralds on the sword glittered in the light as he steadied himself. They were passing by homes and business fast, and the highway of the city was clean and swift so there were no bumps or disturbances.

"Then you shall die and your children and wife will die in the accident." The beast reared up to its legs and ripped it's claws from the ceiling. The hand looked lethal with glittering red nails.

Immediately it swiped at him, the lips and jaw opening to reveal fangs and painted lips, and the finery clothes mocked him as a human being. He wasn't. Friedrich could clearly tell…that perhaps it was a demon in a man's form!

The sword parried the Red Death's blow. However he felt incredible strength behind the stroke and bent down on one knee. From his position The Red Death threw blow after blow, slashing and scratching to cut him down. But Friedrich prevailed, keeping his strong steel sword defending himself. Sparks came from the talons as they struck steel, and Friedrich was getting his arm tired. The Red Death was strong, inhumanly strong.

Henry did not dare look back as his father fought the demon. It tried to take his sister and now the best he could do was keep the carriage moving. It was going out of the city on the road towards the army base. He looked out on the horizon over the gray road and walls, seeing the bridge just ahead.

Then he saw part of it was closed. Half of it was broken, not even there. Rope and wooden posts blocked off the road and the sides. Already the carriage was swerving with each blow. The roof wouldn't last long.

Friedrich tried standing up to atleast strike at him, but The Red Death kept striking down at him. The general was no match for this demon.

"DIE!" friedrich snarled. His hat flew off form his sweaty head, his ponytail ragged and showing his long hair free in the wind.

The Red Death was unscathed. Instead he looked down through the gashes through the carriage.

He smiled down at Virginia, who stared up at him.

"Look out your window." He whispered.

Friedrich looked down at his daughter; she turned away with tears to the window.

The general made a mistake. While he looked down, he was grappled by The Red Death who in turn leaped off the carriage.

Dulcinia screamed as the carriage lost one of it's wheels, skidding to stop as Virginia did nothing but stare out the window over the horizon. The horses whinnied as they stopped, Henry yelling "Woah!" and Dulcinia gasping and hyperventilating on the floor of the carriage.

Virginia stared out the window.

The carriage was away from the edge of the precipice by about a few feet. There, she saw in the light of the sunset The Red Death, floating out into the air with a roaring kicking Friedrich.

He looked like a red bird. A dark red bird with a cape and fog around him, as he glided…

…as he dropped her foster father down to the ground…

And just floated away, gliding in a descent laughing…laughing loud and high…laughing in a way that would chill blood.

It chilled hers. She heard a crash as her father broke his back, head and limbs on some metal and stone pillars.

The laughing ended as now, The Red Death was gone. The air was still with only a breeze that stirred some stone dust around the slabs of concrete and wire.

Slowly with fear she opened the door. The carriage was on a slant, having lost a front wheel. She slipped out, and slowly padded to the wooden planks.

She passed them, and now stood at the edge. The crumbling concrete edge spilled over perhaps 30, 40 feet over a river. The river was not that long or thick, moving it's way through the gorge to supply water to the lakes and river and population here.

But there was construction supplies, carriages, lumber and stone, steel poles and suck to build the other half of the bridge. It was on the river bank.

And on the long, tall stone pillars was a broken bleeding body.

General Friedrich. Foster father. Beloved warrior. Crusader against the Red Death.

He was dropped by that great bird to his death, at the cost of saving his beloved daughter's life.

A crowd had gathered adding noise and cries as they peered over the edge nearby.

Troops and caverly moved closer, roping off the crowds. The poor, beggars, rich, middle-class, merchants, butchers…they all followed the chase to here to see the winner.

The Red Death was still alive.

Virginia fell to her little knees. There seemed a great burden on her. Now the world would not know she was a peasant child…but she would be without a father.

A cost to her memories. Perhaps, she thought, he would return soon, that fiend that ruined my life to come and take me away.

Parchment flew into her face from the wind. Taking it from her face, she read the fancy script in blood.

_Dearest Virginia;_

_You may not know why I need you with me yet…but all will be explained when I shall take you. You will now serve an even better purpose on your 18__th__ birthday and the other events planned for you on that date. You must surely, and I pray that you will, study and know about the monarchy and your culture. It will all die on that day. _

_But there will be a new world with you in it. _

_I shall not harm you. The plague will never touch you, my rose, but it will touch your family. I will try to collect you again on your 14__th__ birthday, but if you resist I shall kill someone dear to you. If you again resist when I come on your 16__th__, someone else will die._

_But I know, my darling rose, that on your 18__th__ I shall be successful. You will be mine no matter what. My blood will be your blood, and the blood will become ours._

_I warn you that your spirit to fight will grow stronger and stronger every year. But you must understand that you will also weaken in your mind. Now that I have fully been implemented in your mind, each visit you will fall more and utterly in terror…or love…with me._

_Be prepared to fight or surrender. You and humanity cannot fight against me and win. If you were a wise woman, regardless of being the daughter of a general or the soon to be Princess, the most logical thing to do would be to come into me arms…and see the world._

_I am not evil._

_Fear me. I want you to fear me. Because I can be dangerous. But I also want you to love me._

_With deepest affection,_

_R._

Rolling it up, she tucked it into her pocket. Dulcinia, her mother picked her up and hugged her close. It seemed she felt numb, felt like she couldn't feel anything outside or inside. She could barely hear her mothers sobs into her hair, or the pain at her second father dead, or her brother's cries as he looked down at his broken body…the crowds surprise and wailing, the mourning bugles…the fear that gripped her senses at her predicament.

The Red death loved her.

She couldn't feel love. She felt she would never feel love again.



**A/N: How lovely. Her father was MURDERED. Now maybe more of her family and friends might die. Wow guys, is this a great morbid story or what? ; Hehheh…bloodshed.**

**Read and review my beloveds! Which…my beloveds are ForeverACharmedOne and one review from Sakura2811. COME ON PEOPLES! REVIEW MORE DARN IT. **

**Shoys.**


	9. Chapter 9: Red ChitChat

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Time for a little chit-chat…**



"MY BATH WAS RUINED BECAUSE OF WHAT?" Prospero indignantly replied. He stood holding a bath towel in his arms, dripping wet with water, in a blue bath robe with a few ladies clinging to his arm.

"S-sir…the R-Red D-Death…came and…a-almost took V-V-Virginia…" A servant stammered. Being in the prescience of an angry young prince is not somewhere where he wanted to be.

Prospero was speechless. The Red Death? That skull faced devil, that evil fiend terrorizing his citizens, ruining food supplies and tax money, and causing inflation? And in the city? And attacking his future wife?

Dismissing the ladies form him that were in the bath with him, he stalked over to the wooden chair in his room and sat down.

"How could this happen? I thought he may have given up…" Prospero sighed into his hands. This was unheard of in his realm! And in his father's time too!

"There was also another casualty. Her father General Friedrich died battling him. He was dragged off the carriage over the bridge and dropped to his death. The Lady Dulcinia is now a widow with her son Henry and Virginia." The servant backed away and bowed his head.

"A great tragedy. Well, we must make sure she is well guarded! Probably on her 16th birthday, even if he hasn't attacked her yet, her family should move into my care." Prospero murmured.

"Yes, my lord." The servant bowed again. "What shall I tell the advisers and commanders?"

"Tell them that there will be appointed guards to the last of the Medictail family at all times till she's married to me. Especially my betrothed, obviously The Red Death is after her more than any other human being. I shall attend the funeral whenever that may be." He sighed, leaning back in the chair relishing in the comfortable leather. Who wouldn't be stressed after your soon-to-be-queen in a few years was almost kidnapped? Especially if he knew that she was not really of the Medictail family?

The servant saluted and left through the doors, leaving Prospero to his brooding thoughts, and perhaps for him to finish his bath. Whatever he decided to do, he was Prince and could do whatever he wanted, whether or not it was an irresponsible action.

Prospero currently was left to the quiet of the tapestries, bookshelves and furniture of one of his many living rooms. He stared into space, a bit worried about his plan almost jeopardized, not caring for the loss of a good's man life and thinking about how he hated funerals.

There was a sound, like a footstep made by a heavy but soft boot. He perked up, wondering how the word heavy and soft boot came into his mind but that was what he thought he heard.

"Good evening, Prince Prospero." A velvety voice spoke in the darkness.

Prospero actually made a squeaking sound as he jolted and sat stiff and upright in the arm chair, looking around the darkened blue room of his home.

"Who goes there? Who ever you are you are intruding the private quarters of your Prince!" He hissed and scanned the room. There, in the dark blue corner stepped a figure in red.

"You are not my Prince, Vincent. I am your king." The skull-faced man spoke. He spoke in a dark tone of a young man. It was smooth, silky, and deadly.

"King? Oh, I suppose you are what they call The Red Death." Prospero gulped nervously before he sneered. The tall figure standing didn't seem that deadly. He just looked like a red-headed man…with piercing red eyes, a skull face with fangs and a red cloak and hat.

"I am more than the disease I spread, little prince. You should speak kindly to your elders. Humor me, I already killed the last man I was near." The Red Death placed his white gloved hand on the side of a coffee table, which conviently had some cold coffee in a teacup on it. The Red Death lifted it up and smiled at the robed Prospero.

"I have no time for chit-chat! You're work has been killing off my money making! The monarchy either starve or die from your pilfering plague! It's a nuisance and you'd better stop it." Prospero sneered more. "And as for Virginia, she's going to be mine not yours!"

"Virginia? Ah yes, that beautiful little girl. She will make a great woman someday. I cannot wait to meet her then. And then you know what my groom-to-be?" The Red death calmly stated as he breathed over the cold coffee, whereupon it immediately started boiling and steaming. "You will never marry her. You indulge too much in women, money, gambling and slowly killing off your people. She isn't just a woman you can have forever in your bed. She is a woman who will rule a new world…without you in it."

The Prince paused, thinking the red man's words over. Yes, he did have concubines, mistresses and such. In fact he planned to have them until his dying day, along with a queen. He couldn't help himself, making love just felt so good! In fact he was about to get laid in his bath but an annoying servant told him that a general died, Red Death was in the art museum and Virginia was traumatized for life.

"Who are you to tell me it's wrong? You're just some obsessed maniac, a psychopath who somehow conjures up demons and killer magic!" Prospero stood up yelling at the idiot man who condemned him for being an unfaithful man-whore.

"It is just your illiterate opinion you say. The fact is, I am a god. That 'killer magic' is indeed killer magic. It is my power. Who else can summon Decay and The Darkness for my bidding? Who has already killed hundreds of people? I have. You should respect me and respect all your fates. Someday you will die. Everyone will die. But she shall live and we will be god and goddess. The rest of your pitiful deities will die as my plague will reach them too in the end." The Red Death sipped at his hot coffee with only a hint of malice in the air around him.

Prospero growled at the impertinence, as he thought it was impertinence from The Red Death. Not only that but he drinking his coffee from this afternoon.

"I will triumph! I will find a cure and watch you wittle away and die, Virginia will be my wife and I will touch her any way I please! And you will be dead and exposited as a fraud!" Prospero started stalking over to the man, grabbing a vase with dead flowers in it.

"You have humored me enough today. I bid you ado till the next time." The Red Death set the coffee down to the table and started backing away.

"Get back here! I want to see you bleed! I know you're just a man!" Prospero roared, throwing the vase.

It passed through The Red Death, for he had already turned into shadow and slinked away…with a hearty, low laughter through the castle's walls.



**A/N: Oh noes! OO**

**R&R!**

**Shoys.**


	10. Chapter 10: Grim Celebration

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Time for a little 14****th**** birthday party…**



It was a bright sunny day on her 14th birthday.

She was dressed in dark purple, her hair long and free, with her young girlish dress short and lacy, and dark as always. She never wore anything bright since the day her father died four years ago.

Today she would don the fashions of a woman. Her hair would be kept in ponytails or buns, her dresses long and elegant around her womanly curves, she would learn to wear a corset and do more womanly, proper ways and manners. Her studies were going to be more rigorous. After all, she would be Princess someday.

Her circle of childhood friends and the few members of her family all gathered at her home. It was a large mansion bedecked in green and dark clay colors, with greens and a forest where she used to play. Today such activities of building sandcastles by the lake, throwing mud and climbing trees would be over. Instead, she could read poetry in trees, walks on the beach and not step anywhere in her dress to a mud puddle. Soon her childhood friends would reach this stage soon.

The party was inside. Butlers were setting up tables, the chefs were cooking, the cake was ready, presents stacked in a corner and her mother busily setting the table. She just was in her room looking out the window at the parked carriages, mothers of friends and aunts and uncles coming inside. Soon, her betrothed would come in his magnificent blue carriage, and would sit next to her giving nice compliments to her and showering her with the most expensive of gifts. He would of course leer at her with hungry eyes, start doing more touching of her because she was now considered a young woman, and he would now become much closer and closer to her because of her age status. Thus he was to marry her and their close intimate relationship needed to be furthered…still she didn't like him.

But she didn't like any of the other men she met. None.

Except for the red man in her dreams.

He was there, a man with no face dancing with her as she wore a red dress in a have of bloody mist. She felt so happy…but the place was dark and littered with skulls. It was not a good thought if it said a tail of death…but she felt happy there.

But now she was here, going downstairs to celebrate her birthday, and knowing that The Red Death will kill someone.

The note he sent her she kept in a locked chest and never told anyone. It was her choice alone if she would leave with him or not. She was afraid of him and dared not think what would happen if she was in his clutches. But no one would die, she thought. She would protect whoever was threatened and they would not die!

She heard her mother call. Quickly she left her musings at the window and hurried downstairs, seeing her friends and family cheer and shake hands with her.

She smiled, delighting in some of their warm company…but the smile seemed fake. It was fake, for the past years she had been sad, grieving and lost. She was confused at herself, confused as to why people feel happy at all. They loved her for she was their family. Only in a sense, for she was adopted and only found out four years ago. She was a wandering soul awaiting this day to refuse The Red Death, to be surrounded by a man she would someday spend the rest of her life with and family who don't understand her.

Her mother wearing her hair in a bun was dyed delightfully pink, leading Virginia by the arm to the table. There, she was sat down while the guests engaged her in conversation.

She went through talking in a haze. She answered and question like a robot, thinking about the doom she was afraid of and hoped Prince Prospero wouldn't come. But, unfortunately he came with a grand arrival and entered, wearing a fine blue and gold robe and feathered hat.

"Virginia! Oh my dear…so good to see you!" He balanced on his toes in his buckled shoes, waltzing over. Virginia reluctantly nodded as he sat in the chair next to her. He took her hand and kissed the ring he gave her many, many years ago on her finger.

"It is a pleasure to see you, Prospero." Virginia said politely. Now that was a thinking adolescent she would now classify his attentions as 'ill-intent' and 'annoying'.

"Please my darling…call me Victor!" He smiled and chuckled and caressed her fingers in his hands. She let him, the Prince could do anything he wanted. And she was just a young woman while he was a handsome man.

"Alright then Victor." Virginia nodded as he dropped her hand and started to exuberantly point out the gifts which were obviously dresses, jewelry, pillows and a kitten.

Still it was a haze. She was living through her birthday party in a haze. Now the food was being served; apple stuffed pork, chicken and mushroom truffles, raspberry and cream cheese spread for the fine bread rolls, garlic wild rice, salad, snail and clam soup, and for dessert lemon soufflé and blackberry sherbet.

She finally woke up when she stood up to blow out the candles on the large chocolate raspberry cake. All were silent, looking at the woman wearing girl's clothing to blow out the candles to don the attire of a Princess to be.

Her best friend Merrin sat next to her. She was almost like a sister which Virginia completely ignored today due to her worries and unease in her mind.

A etching of the Goddess of Womanhood, like the amulet she wore around her neck was on the cake. She hesitated, staring at the goddess. Long ago she wanted to be the figure of all that was a woman's world…but now she thought differently, since The Red Death came into her life.

She blew out the candles. Nothing happened but the clapping of the guests. No Red Death yet…

Now things seemed more like a blur. She tasted nothing but worry in her mouth. She trusted no one. For the past years her face was able to make a practiced mask of normalness, and she furthered her technique to that of brimming happiness. Inside however she was tense. None there at the party was adept enough to read her eyes.

Slowly she opened her presents. Kittens, dresses, hair ribbons, hats and jewels, sewing supplies, shoes and hose were her presents, different from the toys and baubles of childhood. She was to be a woman now, a woman of honor. She was to be a political, intelligent and a leader.

Merrin hugged her, wearing the clothes of her age. She would turn 14 in 3 months, and her present to her friend was a fine blue hat.

None of the clothing was red. None. Only a few beads and such to add color, but red was now a taboo.

The Red Death plague however was closer and more deadly. Rich people were getting killed. Villages affected were set to burn. Taxes were raised and food and supplies more expensive. Fish was getting scarce, for a port had to be blockaded and quarantined from the plague that hit one of it's homes.

And he would come today. He would kill one of these happy faces. She thought, who would it be? My mother? Brother? Prince? Merrin? Another guest and friend? I will deny him. I will kill him.

Kill. Yes, she thought, I never killed. I had my dagger up my leg just in case. I would have no mercy, I will be fearless.

Yet she trembled at the very thought. She had been training herself to be strong and fear nothing. Not even death.

He wouldn't kill her though. He might torture, hurt, or treat her with gentle kindness if she went with him. But she had the choice and he would respect it he said. She didn't know him that well however to see his character. What she knew, was that he was slowly striking her vast country by merciless slaughter and disease, probably watching her every move since she was born to the peasant family, murdered her real parents and her foster father and intended some sort of plan for her to destroy the monarchy and the world. Which rather seemed impossible…but with the extant of the plague, and that he wasn't doing an all out slaughter of the country and instead taking his time, he could go to other countries too to murder…

She was just about to make herself feel grimmer when Henry came into the room.

Immediately her worries vanished as the symbol of her hope and light was here. Henry, her older brother. Henry, who just came back from some pressing engagement, Henry who hung his green wide-brimmed hat upon the coat hanger along with his frock coat…Henry who's very presence always saved her mind from insanity.

"Henry!" Virginia waved and smiled. She immediately put those distressing thoughts away and suddenly felt more aware of her surroundings. She was now 14. She was a woman, just celebrated a birthday and opened her presents. They were in a sitting room, she was on her favorite arm chair, he walked in and sat in another next to her friend Merrin, who was next to Virginia. Prospero gave a nod and a small smile.

"I'm sorry I was late, but family affairs and business took much longer than I had expected. At least I brought you a present!" Henry handed her a small velvet box tied round with a red ribbon.

The guests ooh-ed and ahh-ed, and Virginia's mother gave a little clapping fit. Her mother seemed a bit different since her husband died.

Virginia frowned. The ribbon looked familiar, and not only that but there wasn't much red around these days. Henry got up and handed to her.

"Where did you get this?" Virginia stammered as the distressing thoughts and worries were flooding into her mind. Henry's face was smiling as ever.

"I was handed the package by the mailman in town. It's from our uncle Alexander….a great uncle. Obviously he couldn't come…and I've never met him. Must be a hermit." Henry placed it in Virginia's palms.

She felt there was some ominous power in this little red velvet box…like something was inside it, churning and living somehow…but she was curious. Perhaps if she didn't open it, there would be woe and evil that stalk here.

She opened the hinged box, and all gasped at the ring inside. It was a gold band with a beautiful faceted ruby on it, with intricate gold patterns around it holding it in place of the swirling ring.

Prospero immediately stared at it. It was a shining beautiful shade of dark red, the gold looked exquisite and the ribbon fine material. Now who should give a young lady a ring? Especially…an uncle he didn't know the family had!

Henry was puzzled. The guests were utterly delighted to see their lady given a fine example of craftsmanship. Virginia however knew this was not such a gift from an uncle.

The little note that was in the box, written in red proved to who this little ring came from.

_May this give you fortune and my protection, and show my undying love for you still lives._

_Alexander._

_"_Alexander? Who is this Alexander?" Prospero mused aloud. He read the note over Virginia's trembling shoulders. Jealously raged in his heart, for the note said that this Alexander had undying love for her, his fiancé!

"I d-do not know…" She hastily placed the ring and the note into the box, and started to run upstairs.

The guests were in an uproar as she ran. She opened the door to her room, already seeing the butlers had stuffed it full of the gifts she had gotten today. Dresses and hat boxes were everywhere.

Her heart was racing, know that this Alexander was most definitely the name of her assailant Red Death. That he should give her this blood red ring today was disturbing. The shadows in the room grew as the sun was indeed setting. The nighttime, a time of terror…more grotesque images of ill intent and the musings of the dead entered her thoughts. She was powerless to stop them.

She was just about to lock herself in when Merrin ran in, and Virginia in her fearful haste locked it without noticing her friend casting a worried glance over her friend.

"Virginia? What's wrong? Is it your uncle?" Merrin placed a hand on her friend's shoulders. Virginia turned to face her, holding her hand tightly in hers and tears in her eyes.

"Yes…he's not my uncle! He' the Red Death…he gave me that ring…He's coming for me, he might kill someone…" Virginia was visibly shaking.

Merrin paused. What was this nonsense? But then…he did come for her, and did kill her father…it was Merrin's turn to shake now, bringing her crying friend close as she hugged.

"Everything's going to be okay, we just need to contact the constables…" Virginia started sobbing on Merrin's shoulders, hugging her friend tightly.

"We should…but it won't stop him…he'll kill them too…"Virginia pitifully whimpered. Immediately she pushed her friend away and went to the window. The sun was already setting.

Merrin would have left to get help but concern for her friend made her stay, and that Virginia had the key to open the door.

That was when Virginia took the ring out of the box and looked at in in the sunlight. There, she could see the evil material, the power manifested, that strange darkness that was between her fingers, the detail of the ingrained rose pattern on the band…

But she looked carefully, noticing a strange detail.

"There's a skull in the gem." She gasped, seeing a tiny, pale white skull in the jewel.

"I hope you will treasure your gift." The Red Death spoke behind her.

Virginia whirled around, staring at the fiend that stood in the shadows. In his arms was Merrin, her mouth clasped shut by a strong white gloved hand. She was limp, staring out into space. Her eyes were glazed over like she was dead from fright…but still she breathed and some color was in her cheeks.

Virginia however felt she would die. Her eyes looked over his form, and he didn't seem that monstrous and evil. He wore a red frock coat, a white cravart and his red hair was kept free. The mask was the same however, the same beige and fanged monstrosity that rested over his face, amplifying the redness of his lips. He dressed like a casual gentleman. But still he was threatening.

"I do not want this gift." Virginia managed to say. She pulled the note out of her bosom, holding it in her hand. It was the note from 4 years ago.

"You will accept it no matter what. It shall never leave your dainty fingers, and none shall claim you. It is a token, as I trust you have read the note with it, of my love and your destiny." He whispered the words softly. He stood still like a statue…but had the flesh of a man.

"My decision is thus. I shall not go with you this eve of my 14th year. Whatever plan you have for me shall not be fulfilled for I shall fight you, till the very end." A tear came to her eye, so strangely proud she was bravely saying this. "Even if it means…sacrificing myself…"

"I admire your bravery young lady, but you must take into account that today, Merrin will die because of your choice. I know that she is your closest friend, your main lady whom you confine your secrets, dreams and madness. Her secrets and ours shall die with her." He spoke a bit louder, with a grim face as he looked down at the whimpering limp form of Merrin.

Virginia bit her lip. She expected to come downstairs, bring Henry and guards with her to kill The red Death…but now she was locked in her room and her friend was going to die.

She had made her choice. Her only friend, the only person who she felt safe to describe her battling emotions. The trauma, the fear, the terrors at night, the anxieties about Prospero and his ways…everything…

The Red Death made it quick. He pressed a gloved finger to Merrin's forehead, and immediately she closed her eyes and just…died.

The Red Death carried her body to the bed, setting her down to lay in her eternal sleep. Virginia, while his back was turned went to the wall, clutching the dagger she pulled out from her garter.

Slowly, the red haired man turned, going to the windowsill to pick up the ring she dropped. He examined it, then looked at her. She trembled, clutching the front of her dress in nervousness.

Who wouldn't, after watching their only true friend just…die…from a single touch?

"My lady, you are strong. But you must wear this ring. It will protect you." His boots were soundless on the floor as he headed towards her.

"But will it protect me from you?" She said back and readied to stab him.

"No. I am your protection." He stood in front of her. One move, and the shaking Virginia could stab him!

"You do not protect me! You are my curse!" She hissed. "Don't come any closer!" Her sharp instrument prodded his chest.

"You cannot kill me my dear." Quickly, he grasped the dagger and tossed it out of her hands. Now she was truly defenseless.

As he pressed her against the wall and grasped her right wrist, immediately she began thinking of things she hoped to never think.

She was a young woman now, not a child. She had already hit puberty, was considered attractive by many and now Prospero had a different gleam in his eye; that of lust.

Her mother told her about the birds and the bees yesterday and fresh thoughts of what sexuality is were still in her head. She never actually had any of those desires and adolescent lust yet…but now the provocative position he held her in made her remember the talk about what rape was and how to avoid it.

He glared down at her. She was sufficiently pinned between him and the wall, one hand holding her right hand up and the other hand was holding her against the wall by her shoulder.

The only sound was the shuffling of moving clothing and the loud breathing from Virginia, as her heart was racing madly in her chest heaving with each breath. His hands moved from her shoulder, holding the ring and gently slipped it on her trembling finger.

However when he moved her hand to his lips, she broke from her paralyzing fear and started to wrench her hand from his grip. He was powerful though, keep her arm stiff as he slowly….delicately…placed a kiss on her hand.

She stared as she felt his warm lips tingle her skin. The strange thought that he was kissing her skin made her stomach churn. She could do nothing about it as he planted a few more delicates kisses upon her fingers. Finally he let her hand go and she brought it back in horror.

She looked down at her hand. The ring was on it, and also the slightly damp places where he kissed several times. Only Prospero and royal blooded guests dared to kiss her hand. And now her ring finger carried the ring of The Red Death, where only the ring of Prospero's devotion should be.

However he didn't leave her. Still he pressed her against the wall.

She felt his hard body against her, feeling something muscled and strong was pushing against her slender form. Both his hands snaked to her face, holding her cheeks and his thumbs lightly caressing her. A tear came to her eyes as she feared what he might do.

"Do not be afraid my love. I will never harm you or delight in your pain. You were bound to me from the very beginning. I shall never let you go." He whispered and leaned his skulled face to hers.

This time fear was all the more paralyzing. Her eyes closed as the scent of alluring roses…death…and red, warm blood blew across her face as he breathed. For some reason the scent was alluring…intoxicating…calming…

He kissed her on his forehead, as if asking for forgiveness for forcing a ring on her finger, ruining her life and running his fingers through her hair. She moaned slightly as his mask, warm from his face underneath it nuzzled her golden locks, breathing in her scent, savoring her.

"Good night my rose. I shall see you at your sixteenth with another gift…" He whispered.

Her mind was closing, her eyes shut and lost to slumber. The kiss on her forehead immediately made her sleepy…

She flickered her eyes open to see him lay her down upon the floor, to look down at her with sweet, warming eyes…that looked almost human…she lay, and let her dreams begin…

They would be the only happy dreams she would have for 2 more years.



**A/N: Boy was that…a bit…provocative…**

**R&R!**

**Shoys.**


	11. Chapter 11: Dark Thoughts

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Again, thank you only reviewer ForeverACharmedOne…in fact she is the only person who is encouraging me and giving a reason for writing this…(tear) **

****

"Prospero, I'm completely baffled. How could this happen, in the god's name how could it? We have security all around her home since the first attack, and now a girl has died, laid in your fiancé's bed with her fainted on the floor physically unharmed!" Lord Merguire said, exasperated and stressed.

"I have had no idea. But he gave her a red ring, signed Alexander, to her at her celebration earlier today. And physically, that ring cannot come off!" Prospero too was stressed, hoping to have a nice quiet time with her, planning on giving her first kiss…but it failed when the room was broken in after half an hour to find Merrin dead and his betrothed unconscious on the floor. This was rather unnecessary to his worries.

Indeed, he had been worrying a lot. He had to raise taxes, he was dealing with complaints and more and more pleas for help…but the beak Doctors could only heal the minor cases of plague, and could do no more for more seriously ill. Sometime the plague took a day to do its work, but usually a whole village would be wiped out in one to two days. By then it would have spread to another by the roads and winds, for it was airborne and by touch. It was even found out animals could carry the disease, in-active in more robust animal's and transmit it to humans who came in contact with them, before the animal's die themselves. Lesser creatures however curl up and bleed to their dizzying deaths.

Which then came to his darling Virginia, shaking and trying to be calm holding her reddened hand in her living room.

"The only to remove it is to cut off her finger…which we are not about to do. She has told us nothing of what she knows of why The Red Death came to her today. However we can assume he wants her, perhaps for torture or something so as to spite you. For you are the Prince, and she will be your wife someday is she lives long enough." Merguire sighed and rubbed his forehead. He turned away to go to Lady Dulcinia, who was sobbing in the other room.

"You are right. This…this fiend is torturing her with these encounters and deaths! But he can't get me fearful and angry if he does it to her! He'll have to do better than that!" The Prince lied and stalked to the room where Virginia sat. The Prince did know, however, that The Red Death wanted her for some other reason…to deprive him the rights as king, for she is the true princess, of the true line that was t be almost extinguished, so the prophecy said when the last king was banished to his death hundreds of years ago.

Virginia was seated, alone after having her hand rubbed with oils, soaps, water and herbs. It was to no effect, for the red rose ring still was stuck on her finger. The jewel however was cleverly small enough for a glove to fit comfortably on her hand. It never lost its luster under the water, nothing. It was still beautiful as ever. But to Prospero, it was a threat. His wedding ring should be there instead of that devils! Perhaps that ring was The Red Death's wedding ring!

"How are you feeling my love?" He sat down slowly next to her.

She was trembling a bit, holding her hand, a tear on her cheek and looking down to her lap. There seemed oppression, a gloom that tainted her cheeks. There was darkness in her eyes, tainting the blue to a darker hue.

"I'm just…tired and…lost." She had the feeling that perhaps she should lean against someone, someone to feel warm and get lost into that person's arms, to just sob silently into his shirt…but it was indeed Prospero who she was sitting next to, and he was one of the least desirable people she wanted to cling to. She was lost…but not completely. Insanity still was not here to plague her. Only the Red Death touching her, placing his lips upon her forehead, holding her, threatening her, murdering the person she could trust…forcing a ring upon her finger to keep her his forever.

"No you aren't fine. Come here darling, I want to help you." He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to his side. She was still stiff and refused to snuggle closer, though she felt cold inside to the events that left her chilled.

"You don't understand. You never will. You cannot. You refuse to." She said and still fixated her vision to the green wallpaper. Her mind was filled with heightened senses filled with oppressing darkness of the future.

"Give me a chance my love…I will understand, don't worry…please, tell me everything…" Prospero himself was dying to know what he had said or done to her. All he knew was that he had put the ring on her finger, and who knows what he did else beside kill Merrin. She refused to speak of what else went on.

"Y-you'll…be…nothing. Nothing at all. Just let me go, I want to rest and feel better." Virginia whimpered. She felt like her body was in pain like sorrow would never lift from her.

Her mind was boiling with culprits of grief, depression, confusion, terror, fear, worry and trauma. She had felt thrilled and warm when he touched her, delicately…she felt grief at the loss of her only confinement, confusion as to the feelings that were awakened inside her, terror at her future, fear of the future and his visits in the next years, worry for her own safety and mind….and depression, for no doubt she would be locked into the trap of all that was listed above.

Prospero sighed. He supposed in a few days, or months, when she becomes more cheerful and better again he will have to press for information. He couldn't torture her of course, he was to be his wife someday! However it was frustrating not knowing what had caused her such a terrible fright. Perhaps some gory presentation or something horrifying. Whatever it was it made her shaken and visibly tortured inside.

She stood up and started her way to her room, recently cleaned of Merrin's mysteriously dead body from unknown, Red Death causes. Prospero looked away, angry she didn't think of him as a person to just be held by and loved. Though, he knew he wasn't the right person, he didn't feel that loving at the moment.

She entered her room. It seemed normal, the sheets were changed on the bed, and everything was as it was…before the tragedy.

Her few stuffed animals were scattered on the bed, teddy bears and kittens. Soon because she was now a woman they would be stuffed away into a closet. But now…they were there, they were the remnants of her childhood and the innocence she craved. Once she lived a life of blissful ignorance. But it had been shattered. And now, it was worse. Old wounds reopened. The Red Death's fingers had slit them, let them bleed. In time they would heal over just slightly…before they would be slashed worse and pour forth her life blood.

For now since her last resort to sob her fear all out was dead, the stuffed animals seemed welcoming to hug and cry with. Her purple dress was tear stained and strange exhaustion was apparent.

A hate came to become her thoughts. She hated feeling weak against someone. Now she realized, that perhaps she can control herself and not depend on people helping her, for they could not. She never wanted to feel tired and spent, used and intoxicated with alluring fear ever again.

That was what she felt like around The Red Death. She felt like a lost girl being attacked by wolves. He is there in her mind, he plagues her with his presence. For that is what he is: a plague.

She felt that perhaps tonight will be her last moment of carefree terror and abandon. Tonight, she swore, that here would be the last time she would cry like a girl. The next time a tear would come to her cheeks in her bed, she would be a woman.

As she fell down unto the bed and closed her eyes the stirring lust The Red Death had kindled inside her began it's way to influence her. She breathed softly as tears poured forth from her weary eyes. She felt unclean and no longer innocent…she had seen so much, she had felt so much, she had experienced too much for a young woman. The way he looked at her, the way his eyes spoke with meaning when he said one thing was certainly terrifying. His eyes said lust and refrain, his eyes wandered over her figure with a desire for her, that she knew, but he was strong and held himself back and spoke and moved like a gentleman. But she knew what he was thinking. She knew what he wanted, but he didn't take. She knows those eyes, the eyes of lust too are upon Prospero.

She hoped the Red Death would never take from her in the lustful way. She was sure though that he might on her 18th birthday. The note he wrote to her for the first time had a very suggestive meaning by 'claiming'. She shivered, feeling exposed and naked. Her skin tingled as she imagined his gloved hands stroking her body, arms, legs, and actually kissing her…she cringed, not wanting to think about that any more.

For now, she knew if she did think of the terrors he could give her in the next 4 years she would be locked down into the world of fear and depression that she was in the past. She would not be afraid. She would be fearless! She would be strong and wise and never let anything bring her down! Because she wasn't afraid of him…anyways, she hoped to become that. Right now she was afraid.

But it would be hard to become strong. She was bothered by the increasingly dangerous Prospero who would marry her. She would be Princess soon and rule the country…if it wasn't already ravaged and destroyed by the plague which was killing people everyday. Food would become a luxury, same with workers and people, everything would be expensive. Her family might die of the plague.

But she had been touched by the creator of the disease. Why did she not die?

She didn't know. She had nothing to tell her how and why, and she did not care. She was just glad to be alone, with a ring upon her finger as she slept her fears away.



**A/N: You know the drill…Read and Review. **

**Shoys.**


	12. Chapter 12: Sea of Blood

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Be careful, there's going to be bloodbloodbloodbloodgoreblood in this chapter. Just to warn you so you don't get sick! **



The Red Death looked out to the field. The pasture that was once filled with ripe barely, green and ready to be harvested in the fall. But the summer rain that would come to water the plants would be too late. The green field was red with blood.

They sky was red with sunset, it was even stained by the bloodshed caused by him. Workers and field hands were dead, within an hours time for the entire villages and castle around the fields they were dragged here to foul the earth. He watched as his Decay dragged and drove black carts of desolation full of bodies and the dying. They were flung into the tree-less fields, some men and women screaming as they landed on heaps of corpses as fell into puddles of blood. The grass and grain was crushed and made a bed to the sea of dead. The blood was like water and made the rich soil into red mud. Some Decay ripped off people's heads, devouring the flesh and brains and smearing with their talons and feathers blood upon the skulls, sticking them on the fence posts. The wooden fences were painted red; the stone walls were smeared with guts and body parts, stuck into the crevices. Children and babies were stabbed on sticks and pitchforks in the field. Some were even living, crying and sobbing as they broke out into fever and bled from the disease affected to them.

The ground was in layers of dead. It stretched for several miles. The surrounding towns and courtyards of the three barons of the region were in the fields. Not only was it barely, but they were wheat, corn, vegetables, and pasture for cattle. The bovines were gutted open. And the three barons were hung like puppets on their high tower walls, left their to writhe and die as they watched their servants and advisors be dragged off alive or dead to the fields to be cast in to die. It painted the entire countryside red.

He smirked. He enjoyed it. He loved it when he pierced tacks and hooks into the Baron's bodies to make them attached to chains. He personally hung them up to drip blood down to the ground. Their bodies would decay and only the skeleton would be left, hooked to the bone. The muscle and organs would fall off in their decomposing.

His hands were boney and white, the long nails naturally red. But now the skin was covered with blood. He proffered to take his gloves off when he went to crush skulls and rip lungs and hearts out of victims. The guards and cavalry of the barons were no match against the Decay and his power. Most ran away from the plague he carried. One breath or touch was enough to kill within a half hour. But the deserters were hounded and brought to him where he dispatched their lives rather quickly. They were the first tossed into the field.

The cooks, cleaners, servants, pages, maids, animal tenders and such hardly fought against him. The Decay dealt with those by pulling them out to the field, already infecting them and tossing them into the fields. They guarded the fences so they just stood and wandered, and if they passed over the fence they were beaten and bloodied, weakened they were forced to be thrown back in to die faster.

The Red Death tended to the frightened mistresses, ladies-in-waiting and the wife and daughters of the Barons. He cared hardly nothing for a woman. He looked at their figures, their curves and frightened faces and felt nothing but the wish to taste their blood and terrify them. He wanted to terrorize the people of Labaverion, he wanted to add one more thing to the wailing Barons hanging on the castle towers to know, he wanted to show and be ruthless. He knew he was, he was cruel and bloodthirsty as the Gods had made him.

A smirk came to his bloodied lips. He remembered every gorey detail as he tortured the women. The Decay eagerly raped them and mangled their bodies. He himself took the baronesses and their daughters to the Baron's chambers, stripping them and ravenously biting, shredding and bleeding them to death in an orgy of blood. But he didn't satisfy lust. He had no lust of the pleasure of flesh and flesh. This he only desired with a lady, a lady he must stay faithful as a proper gentleman should.

Instead he must satisfy himself by his dark habits of terrifying, mutilating, and hurting people. He sighed in joy when he made men scream like children. There always came a sick and twisted smile when it came to watching children ripped to pieces and suffering in his disease. And nothing, nothing could ever beat the satisfaction of destroying a woman's virtue, whether by his claws in their intimate places or his teeth there. Their blood was hot and sweet and they screamed beautifully. There was something wonderful to him to feel a naked woman writhe in pain as she bled through her skin and from his bites all over her pale body.

The scent of fear was even sweeter than the scent of lust.

He chuckled to himself. They were all dead now, their corpses dragged off the bed and thrown to the hungry hordes of Decay to finish them off and send them to the fields. He had no use for jewelry and such, only the jewels he mined and made others cast himself. The Baron's fortunes along with the rest in the village were thrown and scattered over the remains of the people in acres of fields. Diamonds and gold were stuffed down people's throats. Many of it was horded by the Decay, dragging bags and piles of it to their wagons to squabble over when they reach their master's keep. But now they were finishing the job and he and they would soon leave to his citadel.

He stood still and savored the smell of blood. Buzzards and vultures came to fly near but dare not hover above the field, for the Red Death still lingered. The only birds that were able to feast unharmed were the Ravens. They came in droves, picking at the bones and flesh in the farther fields of the already dead. Here, the only sound heard was the occasional groan and wail of a dying mortal and the sloshing gait as his corvine Decay cawed and grunted in the fields, picking out bodies and choice delicious hearts to dine upon.

The scent of blood blinded everything. But there was nothing to smell but the blood. It was the scent of life, it was the taste he craved and the feel of it warm and salty on his skin and clothes made everything all the more pleasant. When he was alone and with his bloodthirsty demons, then he felt free to be an animal.

During his hunts and in his path of destruction, there was no need to be the cold calculating gentleman that he was. All thought of preserving a stature of dignity and self control was lost. Already his clothes were soaked with blood and his cape dripping with it. It looked like he probably swam in a river of gore. His mask was stained with droplets of the life liquid from his sword, as the blood sprayed from the wounds he slashed open on the soldiers who dared to fight him. His stiff red hat had it's crisp feather slick with it. His hair was matted with blood, the ribbon holding it back loosely holding the hair in a tail.

Today was a good day for him. In a few days he would attack again, only not as harsh and cruel and widespread. More vicious massacres will come in the future, but not now. He would take things slow and painfully for the country.

As he stared out to the field of the dead he felt the presence of his guardians behind him. The 7 Darkness stood and breathed behind him, circled round his still form. Their breath was raspy and their faces hidden in the fold of their red worn hoods. They stood and swayed with the breeze watching The Red Death turn round and face the guardians.

"It is a beautiful sight, my lords. The death and blood here is only a taste to what the rest of the country shall become. Soon the entire land, fields and forests shall be red with blood. The plague shall make this realm uninhabitable for decades." The Red Death said. "From here, the most powerful country destroyed we shall move on to plague the rest of the world. Within a year or more, the earth will be coated red and the sea shall be blood. And there the world will begin again, not from dust but from the pure of life's liquids…blood."

The Darkness swayed and breathed. Mist and demon smoke created a fog around their grouped statures.

"I am honored that you have let me fulfill the doom which you have always wanted. And I am grateful I shall be married to a beautiful strong lady. The power, the strength, I am ever grateful. I am yours to serve whatever task for the cleansing you ask. There is no greater joy than to exact my revenge and bring us to a new age." He bowed and took his hat off, elegantly nodding his head. The head Darkness nodded slowly and rose it's skeletal hand upwards.

"Rise…Red Death…arise, God of Blood." It rasped in slow words. The language was of the demons but all who heard it would understand. Such was the ability of the language and the Darkness that spoke.

He raised himself up and stood tall like the god he thought he was. But his eyes were lowered in respect. These were the guardians. They were the watchers and saw to it his power was used not against them.

"I am the God of Blood. I am the new born lord of the world. I will be god of Life and Death. There will be a middle power from me, my Guardians. It is what the lords of Death have wanted. It is what you give me. I am privileged, my lords, that I will be possessed with all the Gods after the full cleansing." Said The Red Death as he pulled a golden locket from around his cravat.

"It is…as the world…should…" The Darkness breathed together.

"And you have given me the mate of our new realm. She is the one you have promised and made." He opened the locket to show a small painted portrait of the young lady Virginia, age 14. She was sitting in a red dress, her hair up in a bun and wearing a floppy red hat with feathers and a poofy beautiful dress. Her face was dainty and rouged with makeup, the face of a perfect woman, glowing like a goddess.

"Yessss…you will…create…the new world…with her…there will be true beauty from…you both…" They wheezed. "We ssshall see you…home…"

He watched as they turned and started walking back, disappearing into thin air, fading to nothing.

They always did that. They were denizens of the world and filled with almost unlimited power. He himself had yet to properly possess that.

But now he was content and satisfied. He would retire to his castle and rest and plan, and watch from afar when the army finally dares to come near and take care of the bodies. He would be happier then. His hordes of servants now were turning into their shapes of large crows, the corvine creatures into large crows and they flew in a swarm, a flock into the red sunset sky to The Red Death's realm. He would meet them there.

He began his trek over the red trail to his carriage, gilded and golden with red and skulls upon it. The horses were well fed from choice meats and the Decay driver crawled up to it's perch, cawing softly and his belly full from the feast and slaughter. It's stained red rider's hat was painted freshly red from what it ate.

It knew where to take the carriage. The red Death stepped in to the upholstered interior and the Decay screeched excitedly, cracking it's whip to start the horses into it's gallop.

A trail of pointed hoof prints ended in the village square. The carriage had disappeared.



**A/N: What a lovely happy little chapter! Haaa, haa. **

**Shoys.**


	13. Chapter 13: Confusing Party

**A/N: Party time! Well I just got back from a vacation with my grandparents so I have some chapter to upload to this and to my other fic **_**The Mousetrap.**_** Enjoy! **

****

Spring once more. Spring, a season of new life. A time that also heralded Virginia's birthday.

This spring however was to be painted red instead of new greens. This year was terrible for the country, for there was depression in the lasting cities yet to be affected by the plague. There was lack of food, the rivers were tainted with poisoned blood from The Red Death's mad tactics of slaughtering villages and cities, one by one, into massive amounts of slaughter and violence. The capital city fortified it's walls and hundreds from cities, those that remained intact, were fleeing to here. For the entire border of the country was veiled with a wall of death. The ocean cities were already massive stone cities rotting for weeks and months with decaying bodies. The forest edges and beaches were impaled with corpses making a wall. The mountain border in the north to the country of Galrope, which was a conquered country in the Labarverion Empire was completely inaccessible from the mountains and the red, poisoned snow. The hills to the conquered realm of Hidaglo were stained and it became a home for the Decay, the corvine demons that were in fact…nesting over there.

The territories and countries conquered by the empire could not help them. Some smuggling attempts succeeded in sending food through the mountains, but that did little to help. The countries Prospero's legacy had conquered were unaffected by the plague. The Red Death was only affecting the one main country. However, the others under Labaverion's rule were in no position to send in troops and supplies due to he barricade of death.

The world look grim. Slowly but surely The Red Death was closing in for the kill. The Capital as right in the center of the country. All were fleeing towards it for help and security, for the beak doctor's stations were there and the most expensive, elaborate temples were there. It was the beacon for hope for the people that were surrounded by death. Every day, hundreds die horrible bloody deaths.

The city so far was not affected yet by the demon. It was overcrowded with pining refuges, starving and dying of hunger and thirst, depleting supplies. The beautiful forests and countryside were around the city were swarming with homeless people and peasants. Trees were being cut down for firewood. It was being desolated already, before the plague could destroy the beauty first.

The manor house of Virginia's family was left abandoned. Prospero moved them in to one of his palace's homes, for in his estates there were many homes for officials and such.

Tonight however, would be a celebration she would never forget.

She would turn 16 this night and Prospero, ever the lover and selfish brat, would see to it she would be attended to at all times. Her body had turned into a woman's, and she was to be his. Tonight, he knew she was ready and old enough to know what love and affection really meant in their courtship.

There was to be a ball in her honor. Guests and dancers were invited in the garden for the dance and servants were adding the finishing touches to the dance area. Soon the guests would be let in and the food would be done and cooked. The cake was veiled with a thin sheet, presents stacked in boxes and wrappings on a table in the corner. Gas lights and torches were lit and garlands of flowers…all noticeably not red…was strung round a maypole in the center of the garden circle. It was a wide area for all the guests to dance away the night.

The elegant blue house nearby was where Virginia resided with her mother and brother. Her mother was not in, for she was outside in the evening air helping to set the party tables.

Virginia was in her room, gazing at the mirror. A maid in blue was dressing her hair, brushing her golden locks and ornamenting them with blue flowers and pearls. Her hair was left free and long with strings of sky blue pearls in her hair.

Sighing, she watched the hand maid place a small blue hat on her head, tying it round her neck with a thin blue ribbon. Virginia thought she looked a bit…submissive…but perhaps later, she plotted, she could take off the hat and just show off the flowers in her hair. Unfortunately getting rid of the light blue, ruffled, low-cut dress would be harder. At least she was allowed comfortable shoes for dancing.

This style of dress was Prospero's favorite type. Ever since she moved here 6 months ago he 'hinted' she wear blue dresses. Everything was blue, green or gold. She detested these light colors. She preferred the comforts of black, purple, dark midnight blues and her favorite color…red. Try as she might, all her red dresses were hidden or destroyed. Red was now the national color of death. Anyone who wore that color was considered ill favor. But to her, it was of comfort, of some strange attraction…

Attraction it was. The Red Death was murdering in her name. He was going to visit her tonight and kill someone. He wouldn't kill Prospero, for he said to her many times she was part of his plan between herself and Prospero. Would he kill her mother? Her servants? Dare she think…her brother?

"You're as pretty as a robin's egg!" The handmaid exclaimed with a light giggle. Her naturally shrill voice woke Virginia from her morbid thoughts.

She nodded slowly. She was not looking forward to the ball. She was not looking forward to dancing with Victor Prospero, nor was she looking forward to The Red Death making an appearance.

"Well darling, time to go to the ball! Here's your gloves…" The hand maid then with joyful exuberance handed Virginia her white gloves and left the room humming down the hallway.

Silently and with painful memories, she slid on her long gloves, covering the ring on her left hand. The small ruby in the elegant ring, the ring that would never come off for the past 2 years seemed to glow.

_Perhaps it feels his presence. I know he is coming. _She thought.

She would have to go down to the ball. Victor was there, his whores dismissed for this special occasion. Now that she was older she knew he would have the permission to start touching and groping her in a sexual manner. She knew what he thought of her. He thought of her as the most beautiful lady with the most beautiful body and the most beautiful, plump breasts he couldn't wait to squeeze. He already kissed her fleetingly several times, which she felt a bit fascinated at kissing…but not with him. He was spoiled, wanted everything and loved his little obsessions. He gave her a tour of his zoo of executions, his collection of maddening torture devices and always had strange, bizarre entertainment. She feared what horrifying pleasures would be at the private ball. She was in his palace, and she was going to marry him in two years.

She did not want him. She did not want the power, his lustful attentions, his greed for power and insane tastes. He was mature for being 24 years old, save for his glee in watching grotesque tortures and strange, sick humor. Not to mention his constant need for taking women to bed. But he saved his lustful eye to her. His sweet smile was filled with a hunger. He was not the selfish brat of old. He was a calculating villain. He would give her no regard of what she wanted.

She only wanted The Red Death to stop haunting her.

But it could not be. He was getting close to killing everyone here and would soon, after proud Labarverion destroyed, would take on the other countries. And she was doomed to be his wife.

Would The Red Death be a demanding, lustful creature too? If The Red Death was destroyed, somehow, she would still marry Prospero.

She had no say in anything. A fate rested on her shoulders that no one around her could help her with, because none could listen, none would help, none could possibly help.

He was invincible.

She might as well get this over with.

Slowly, she went through the door and descended the marble steps. The doors were wide open to let in the warm evening air. The guests were coming in to the garden with loud conversation. She frowned, seeing that these guests were snooty officials of Prospero's ilk. They were wearing bouffant clothing and giggling and yelling with cheery, if obnoxious tones. In fact, she noticed that all the monarchy spoke in these tones, plus put too much powder to their faces. She felt stifled in such company. All they ever talked about was money, power, vanity and the latest fashions. Nothing about their hoarding and their people on their own lands dying of death and over work.

She stood ready to face the evils of the government.

Suddenly, everything changed. For there walking in was her own brother!

He looked happy as always. He was smiling warmly and was wearing full regal blue and gold garb. He wore a jacket, fine stocking and breeches and held his blue, gold edged hat warmly. In fact, everyone was wearing blue at the party. The innocent color of blue was truly getting on her nerves now.

"Are you happy, Virginia?" Henry said sweetly.

"No. I'm turning 16, I'm surrounded by the color blue, and I will have to dance with Victor. You know how…" Virginia paused, about to say she was nervous with him. Though she was, she wanted to change herself so that she was in power, not in fear of Prospero. "…awful he is. I hate him."

Henry sighed and held her hand.

"All will be well. I'm sure he isn't that bad, is he?" Her brother said. His face conveyed worry instead of his usual cheerfulness.

"He is! It's terrible being engaged to that…that man! There is nothing worse besides death by the plague." She pleaded with him. "You should know by now how I suffer."

"You do suffer, I know you do. But we cannot change it. We are stuck living here and you to be married, if we are all alive in two years." Gently he squeezed her hand. "You must at least act happy for tonight."

"I will. But I will not truly be happy." She sighed again. With that she turned and went to meet the guests.

The rich nobles there applauded as she walked outside to the garden ball room floor. The monarchs, barons, dukes and counts and their wives all looked upon her, seemingly jealous of her looks but in disdain that such a prince would still be engaged to a woman who brought such bad luck. Not only that, but she was the daughter of the lowly family of Mauchdom!

Still, they were invited by their prince and for state matters, must attend any party he invited them to. And so they came, to dance and boast about their accomplishments and forget that their country was in mortal peril.

Virginia passed the thick of them and was at the trellis gate to the main part of the party. She wanted nothing of the kind to be near them. All they did was boast and talk of vanity and money. The government was completely greedy. And most of all the Prince.

She was startled from her thoughts by Victor himself, as he seemed to swoop down from behind the hedge wall and appeared before her. He wore a fancy blue jacket and a light green cravat, shining dance slippers and his hair was tied in the back with a light blue bow. And his hat was blue and flowery just like hers. His face was powdered and had fancy blue face paint streaks, creating his figure as elegant and blue with hints of greenery. However, his smile and manner was that of an aloof clever bastard.

"Happy birthday, my beloved." He spoke coolly. His smile was making her uneasy.

"Good evening Victor. I see you've made my birthday a rather grand occasion." She slyly said. Her hand was quickly grasped in Victor's.

"Yes, of course. Shouldn't it be? You are soon to be a princess, and you are a beautiful, wonderful lady. You should know by now you are an important player our country's politics." He smirked as he started to lead her in.

"I know this. But as for my personal wishes, I do not wish to be surrounded by your corrupt officials. Or else you're planning that these will be the last times you will be with them? When I marry you things are going to change." Virginia spat back with a smile.

Victor still smiled, but inside cringed. She, going to change everything? She was a wife, a woman! How dare she be so independent and cold to him!

"Clearly, you aren't a child anymore." Victor sweetly purred.

"You just noticed?" Said she, softly.

Victor had no answer for that, but he didn't need to reply, for Virginia's mother came running over brimming with excitement.

"Oh, young love! Well Virginia, how is everything? Everything is as blue as a Robin's egg! I knew you'd like the color!" Dulcinia said in her annoying tone.

"It is wonderful mother." Virginia said with a smile. Her mother seemed to be getting senile through the years, with all the trauma that was happening around her. This was why she thought that her daughter liked the color blue.

"How wonderful! Positively wonderful! Well I'll leave you too alone!" Quickly, she turned towards the guests milling inside and began to converse with them.

She turned to look at Victor's beaming face.

"Shall we dance?" He chuckled.

"Yes." With that, Virginia grudgingly gave him her hand to be led to a waltz.

The waltz was at first silent on the white stone tiles, but soon the small orchestra got the hint and began the music. The guests, if they were not gorging upon punch and appetizers first went to join the couple in the garden dance floor. Soon, as the sun finally set, the birthday ball dance floor was crowded. The loud noise of laughter, music and the babble of voices were creating a strange sort of music.

Virginia getting exhausted dancing with Victor. He was too, but he didn't dare stop. He was waiting for the right moment to cue the chamber ensemble to play a more romantic number, for a romantic kiss…

However, she was in no mood for a kiss. She guessed that was what he was planning on giving her very soon. She glanced at a clock that was in the arms of a statue by the punch bowl, and saw that it was 7:15. They had already dance for an hour!

As he twirled her around, she suddenly remembered something important.

Dancing with Victor, who had left much to be desired, had taken her mind off the fact that The Red Death was coming tonight. As they danced some more, she saw her brother smiling and eating salmon crackers, her mother chatting up a storm with some fat Countesses in pink, and the guests milling about with their snooty ways. The walls were tall hedgerows with blue candles and such. The sky was lit by stars. The silhouettes of the main palace, manor houses, guests homes, stables, and other buildings here in the lands of the royalty were dark and their windows lit by light. Suddenly she felt…cold…and alone…though she was surrounded by a throng of people.

The 30th waltz she danced ended. She felt this dance party was all a dream, though she felt tired. The dance this time…was slow.

She felt like she was being watched. Like there was a strange, dark creature watching her every move. It wasn't Victor, who was smiling with a lustful grin and holding her close by the waist and shoulders. It wasn't the guests, for they were only concerned about themselves. It wasn't her brother or her mother. The strange feeling was making her sweat, her skin tingling as she slightly trembled. There was the feeling that she should be afraid.

They stopped moving. The song had ended. And she was pressed against him, her body against his as he had pulled her in close. She was breathing fast as her body was starting to panic, her head inches away from his as he still smiled. His hand quickly slipped from around her waist to her back and his other hand delicately went into her golden hair.

She stared at him, wondering for a few seconds what he was doing…she felt a strange feeling from his touches, for he never touched her there at all, in such a manner…nor did he ever lean his face in like that.

Nor did he ever passionately, deeply kiss her.

Her ears rang as the crowd began clapping. Her mouth was being numbed and manipulated by Victor. Her head was being pulled in deeper. Her body was being crushed against his chest. She saw his eyes closed, opening occasionally to stare down at her cleavage. She saw her brother's jaw drop. Her mother was giggling happily. Her hands were shaking. Her breathing was getting more rapid.

She saw The Red Death staring from the edge of the garden.



**A/N: R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R!!**

**Shoys.**


	14. Chapter 14: Nip at the Neck

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Warning! Dominating sexyness ahead! **



He stood, silently watching her dance.

The ignorant Prospero moved his darling lady to the music. The Red Death saw obviously that she was in a daze of worry as she was made to dance with Victor. She was only worried about how himself would appear, when The Red Death would come and what form. Would he scare everyone, would he make a scene, would he sneak through the window into her room at night? He could almost hear her thoughts. He smiled realizing she was starting to fear a darker, sinister sexual aspect of him.

He was not a burglar who wouldn't hesitate with vulgar actions. Yes, he would try some things…but it was all in the plan to excite her and make her mind stronger. Then when the time is right, he would experience consensual acceptance and her love. He was confident she would fall. But he would be satisfied if she was harder to get.

The music went to a slow one, the dancers already knowing that their Prince would make a move on her. It did not matter if she was disgusted with him. She would be kissed anyways. The Red Death in the shadows only hoped that he would not succeed in forcing her to bed in the coming years.

But if he tried, he would persecute those who offended his lady.

The skull faced man sighed. No more was the world filled with honest women and honorable women. No one respected each other, no one trusted, no one loved, and no one cared. All of the land, in his opinion, had turned to scum and dirt. The powder on their faces hid the slime coating their disgusting wretched souls.

At least Virginia was blessed with beauty and wisdom. The only other with a pitiful amount of intelligence was her foster brother, but he was weak and not strong enough to rebel and change. His heart was soft and pliable and filled with too much goodwill to get anything done to clean up the swamp of government. He, the man thought, shall be dead tonight.

The music took an ending, cueing The Red Death to turn and watch what would happen. As expected, Victor pulled her in for a deep kiss as the crowd clapped. Her eyes were wide with fear and disgust…but they got even wider as they locked with his own. He glared, watching his arrogant rival claim his beauty's mouth. He imagined it certainly must be wretched.

Victor beamed with a smirk as he let go, but Virginia was still staring. Her jaw had dropped and looked at Victor, biting her lip.

"Anything wrong, my dear?" Victor indignantly replied.

"Yes. You! And The Red Death!" She hissed. Immediately she pushed him away and took off running to the nearest exit.

The guests were left behind chattering and laughing, and resumed their dance. What did they care? They'd rather have conversations about themselves and didn't have time to worry about the wild woman!

Victor was left standing there, before he decided to follow her. No one had the right to push away his fine lips!

Virginia ran trough the gate, holding her blue dress up so she wouldn't trip. Her panicking made her run through the maze, going actually further and further away form the part and the nearest manor homes. The only illumination now was the bright full moon, making the hedge leaves gleam and the occasional bird bath brighten with moonlight.

Finally she stopped and sat down on a stone bench. Her heart was racing wildly as she settled down her nerves and heart. The funky blue hat was bothering her and she threw it off to the cobblestones. Her hands nervously clutched the ruffles on her dress. She was determined not to be afraid of him. She was determined to be a strong, capable woman of power.

The bushes rustled from where she had come. She stiffened and prepared to face that face she saw so often in her nightmares. But instead, it was of her brother Henry, worried and rushing over to her side.

"I saw what the prince…did to you. I didn't know it was rather rude or anything…" He bent down to his knees and held her hands.

"It is rude. I hate him! And he wants to do what he wants with me! Well I won't let him…and I, won't let The Red Death come…again." Said Virginia. There was a tear in her eye from the frustration. She was close to spitting out the foul taste of Victor's breath.

"The Red Death isn't here. He won't come, we will find a cure very soon…" Henry whispered as he wiped away her tear.

"No, he really is coming, he said he would. He's going to kill someone, maybe you if you don't get away. He won't take me with him, I know it…but he'll be here, he'll do something to me, he'll touch me…" she thought she was impervious to it all, but she was still not strong enough to not panic slightly as she said this. A woman has strong intuitions. And she felt that something was going to happen that would not only horrify her but make her very uncomfortable.

Henry couldn't say anything. He didn't know if he could cheer her up enough. But certainly he knew that there was something watching him.

There were cool, soft steps of some one with fine shoes coming into the circle of cobblestones where they were.

Henry immediately pulled out his flint-lock pistol from his sash and stood up, cocking it and aiming it at The Red Death. There was the determination of a General's son in his eye. Henry was not without military training and the will to protect his sister who sat watching behind him.

"Get away from her. If you want her, you will have to go through this bullet." Henry said. His kind sensitive self as put away for the moment and a determined strong man was talking with the gun.

The Red Death was wearing fine dressy dance clothing, his cape this time only a sash draped over his arm. His hair was beautifully braided and tied with a golden ribbon. He was dressed like a crown, an elegant man who was the glitter of ruby and gold.

"I do indeed want her, but I will not come to her unless her predicament demands comforting and adorations of the one who loves her. But for now, I have no need to come closer till your weapon is disposed and so are you." The familiar melodious voice of dreams said. The Red Death still had not lost his touch in his cold statements of facts. Virginia felt like she could have swooned hearing his voice in the flesh instead of the apparitions in dreams.

"You do not need to comfort her. Already you distress her enough and murder hundreds each day. Go, begone you fiend! Or I shall shoot and wound you." His teeth were clenched in the iron will to shoot him.

"No mortal bullet will hinder my power. There is strength in my blood and my body that enhances my will. I shall not die from these simple means." He said. He raised his gloved hand and his fingers appeared to crush something in the air.

Virginia, almost shaking, watched as Henry's gun was crushed and dropped to the ground. Henry backed away and watched as The Red Death was taking steps forward towards them.

Henry readied his fists. Virginia got up from the bench and moved away.

The Red Death raised his hand ready to block any blow at him as he approached Henry. Now he stood only a few feet away.

"Virginia…will you come with me?" The Red Death said as he turned his head to her.

"Never." Virginia breathed.

"You know the consequences. This is final." He said again in the same tone.

Virginia would never let herself be in his power. All her life she was only concerned about herself. Herself, for there was two men after her. She was so worried and afraid that she could hardly care that the world was dying around her, that a person would be sacrificed for her sake and die for her. She knew she was going to be used for something terrible, but being with The Red Death now was not what he wished.

But her loving devoted brother was being killed.

Tears came freely from her eyes as Henry attempted to punch at The Red Death. But he was overpowered, and The Red Death easily blocked his fists and grasped his wrist. Immediately, a red mist coursed from his sleeve and went to smother Henry's body. Henry's face turned to terror as he started choking, making a gurgling sound as his skin started breaking out in blood seeping through his skin. Henry fell to the ground, dead as he hit the stones.

Virginia could have screamed. The only person she trusted in the entire world she had left to senselessly die. This was not love, nor life, but she didn't know if it was truly the right thing to do. Having him die was something…terrible. It was a terrible loss for her down the road, because now she was all alone.

Guilt for her sin caused her to fall to her knees. Now she was sure se wasn't as strong as she wanted to be, for The Red Death. No way in her mind she could feel good and well, no way would she show that she was the weaker one. Sorrow and grieving however was a powerful emotion, and with this it gripped her and she couldn't at all process anything that would tell her to get up and run. It was only telling her that she should cry over her brother's body.

The Red Death looked down at her, watching as she wiped her face of the tears. Standing up, she glared at him with anger and hate, slowly making her way towards him.

"There are ways to avoid such disasters. If only you'd end this misery. I could give you everything you want and wished for." He spoke.

"You have given me nothing but pain. You have made me hide within myself and left me all alone in the world. I cannot be able to trust you. Your manner is that of a heartless gentleman, in love with me but you wish to destroy." Virginia said. Her throat was getting dry with frustration and grief.

"I am not destroying. I am cleansing the land, making the world a place for us. I do love you, Virginia; I love you and would never hurt you. You are only becoming stronger through your wild emotions." Said The Red Death. As he spoke, his hands were reaching towards her.

She backed away with a sharp movement and raised her arms, in a small attempt to protect herself. His calculating eyes never flinched as he stretched his arms out more to her.

Virginia responded by punching his face.

He backed up a bit, his mask unmoved as he returned his arms to his back, holding them there and tilting his head in mock amusement. Virginia's hand was hurt from the hitting the heavy mask, and she backed up some more holding it while gritting her teeth.

"If you touch me, I'll fight unlike what I did last time. I'm not a little girl anymore. I won't let you even near me!" She hissed. "I know what you want. I know, no matter how much of a gentleman you are you still look upon me with lust. Everyone does that to me."

"I cannot deny it." He said. Virginia paled, surprised how bold he would admit it. "I am an honest being and I truly love you, body and soul. Your eyes are as blue as the heaven's sky, hour hair as golden as the warm sun, and your skin glows with the luminous blush of a rose. The rose is the most perfect flower…"

"Your flattery will not help your case. I hate you." She turned her back and stamped her feet.

"It is how I wanted to show my love for you. I thought perhaps you would be delighted by traditional court flattery. But it appears you are not fond of the corrupt government's way of love and vanity."

Virginia stiffened and started walking away.

"I want to talk to you." He said. She quickened her pace to the labyrinth gate.

But she didn't make it, for The Red Death apparently was right behind her and pulled her against his chest. She was swept off her feet as he grasped her possessively and suddenly by the waist and collarbone.

She started to breathe faster and was squealing, his boney hands holding her against him. She felt his hot breath in her hair as she struggled. It was most certainly a terrible surprise. She was trapped within his arms. She had been in this situation before, against a wall when she was 14 but…being held n such a possessive grip was making her panic even worse than before.

"You lips…should have been mine." The Red Death hissed in his ear as his mouth started kissing her temple and face. The thought occurred to her, as she yelped and tried to move her head away, that he was jealous of Victor. Especially of Victor's disgusting kiss.

"They were never yours! They're mine!" She said in a feeble attempt at defiance.

His grip went to her chin pulling her head back to face him.

"Then I shall claim them myself." His eyes were red, glowing fiercely enough to make any woman quake. He closed them, and she saw he painted the eyelids and the area around it with black paint to give mo illusion that his head was of a skull.

That was when he kissed her.

His breath was very hot and tasted of blood. His tongue slipped with ease inside her parted mouth, exploring with a hungry passion.

She had the plan as soon as he kissed her that she would bite that evil tongue of his, but now that it was doing pleasurable and gentle sweeps inside she was perplexed and limp. It was so shocking, the strange sensations that she became immobilized and curious. She kept staring at his contorting features as he kissed and tried coaxing her tongue to explore with him, but it wasn't really working. She was too shocked, and he pulled away and started to ravish her neck.

She blinked a few times and let out a disgruntled moan as she came to her senses. Her senses were now telling her that he was kissing licking, purring and groaning as he gently chewed and bit her bare left shoulder and neck. She didn't think that a regular man would do this. However when he made a nip, a cut from his teeth on her neck she cried out in the jolt of pain and did not want him at her neck any more.

"Get off! Now!" She demanded and started pushing on his chest, trying to get him off. His grip on her back and her rear, holding her up, became stronger. His hands became busy massaging her neck as he sucked at her skin, sounding like a strange creature of the nighttime.

"Your blood is so sweet…" He groaned. "I have little time to enjoy your beauty, and soon, I must leave till the coming years will end." He purred and gave on last lick up her throat to her chin. She shivered and breathed harder.

"You told me once y-you were such a gentleman. Yet now, n-now you attempt to molest me." She stammered and stared with renewed fear and experiences.

"I did not attempt to. A fit of jealously blinded me, and it has been ages since I last caressed your radiant flesh. Soon, perhaps you will welcome my advances." He purred and gave a slight smile.

"Welcome them? You who, who just kissed me and a-and bit me and did other strange things…to me? Never. I will never love a beast who does this to me." She gulped and started calming down a bit, though she was still held tightly in his arms.

"We shall see how much of a mortal you are." He purred again, and let her go. Virginia stumbled slightly, backing away and leaned against a hedge, watching him as he tipped his hat and pulled out a rose from his jacket.

"For you my beloved. A token of my love." He bowed slightly and steadily moved towards her, placing the rose between the patch of blue asters in her hair. She let him, wishing he would just leave her forever, and leave this land and the destruction he caused behind.

He turned and with the air of a debonair, walked into the rest of the maze, disappearing in the hedges.

Virginia slowly in a daze made her way to the stone bench, sitting down and rubbing her neck. It was wet from his salvia and she felt the small bruise and cut from where he had bitten her. Such vicious bloody behavior was not welcome at all, nor was it a part of traditional courtship, biting while necking. Even the fact that his mouth was on her was even more disgusting than imagining Victor doing that!

It was all barbaric, against her will, and showed how desperate The Red Death was for her. He was in love…and lust. She would have to be even stronger to keep him away. She would have too…for on her 18th birthday he would come again, and this time take her by force instead of letting her go.

She feared him even more. Now, now she hoped that she would be able to learn and understand. Now she was sure that she would be wittier, smarter, and braver against a foe of obvious learned techniques, intelligence, knowledge and wit. He was also power hungry, selfish, obsessed and had the possibility that he was a good man once, if he ever was a man at least. He looked like one, had some mannerisms of a human, but certainly didn't always act like one. He could be a demonic apparition, or possibly like he said to the people that fled him that he was, indeed, a god. The God of Blood, as was his other name besides The Plague, Red Fiend, Blood Demon, and The Red Death.

Now there was nothing left but to become a powerful woman. No more would she be kept silent under the rule of Victor. She would speak up and learn, she would be a powerful politician and the savior of her empire!

That was her hope and reason. She must move on and not think of the past, for it had blinded her and made her into a weak, submissive young woman. No more, she vowed in her head, would she weaken at a kiss! No more would she follow Victor's orders exactly, or wear what victor told her to wear. She would take part in the court, she would study and observe, she would know who she was marrying, who was The Red Death, and how to find a force to kill him. She doubted there was any cure to the disease, there was only powerful herbs and spells to help cure the not so wounded. Those just barely touched, with proper medical help, survived. Those given larger doses of the red mist and the disease invisible to the eye were not able to be saved without themselves causing their beak doctors to die with them.

There had been so little research for medicine and science, she thought. Now that the world needed studies in antibiotics, pills and such they were behind. Now that she thought about her history classes with the tutors, they mention that there was a time many, many decades ago that the last king had shut down the Academy of the Sciences, Chemistry and Healing. All that was left of knowledge was left to the universities of literature, alchemy, religion and arithmetic. There appeared no apparent need to delve into the controversial mysteries of blood, disease and analyzing liquids. Now all the healing was done with prayers and herbs.

It was a sad state of affairs.

Sighing, she fingered her gloved hand and pulled it off. There was her hand with The Red Death's ring, glowing faintly. It was a gift from his last visit. And now the rose that was in her hair, a deep beautiful red like blood. Gifts and treasures from an evil man who only wanted her, nothing else besides the bath of blood he bathed in, in his quest to murder the world.

Victor soon stumbled out of the bushes. Obviously, he got lost in the maze and now found her. He also found Henry, who was dead in a pool of blood near the seated depressed Virginia.

She took no notice as he helped her back and the butlers came to take care of Henry's body. She was in a daze of frustration and iron will. She had no thought of Victor tugging her by the arm to her room, nor of her distraught mother wailing in her own bedroom down the hall. Henry the innocent was dead, the entire world would be dead soon and now, she felt dead.

The world was truly unfair to her today.



**A/N: Things are getting really tough now…We can only hope the world won't end that quickly!**

**Shoys.**


	15. Chapter 15: Darkness Falls

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Long but super-duper-extra-special chapter! Darkness ahead..**



Death. There was nothing left but death.

There was a small substantial cause for celebration during Virginia's 16th birthday. The world was still fulfilled with a fighting chance to survive, to prevail against the plague. There many alive, there were towns and cities still operating and living almost normally.

However, by Virginia's uneventful 17th the land had no cause to celebrate anymore.

There were only three cities untouched by the plague. One by one through the year, they fell. The people from the towns and villages, hamlets and thorps that were decimated by plague came to crowd into the safekeeping of the metropolises. Disease spread and The Red Death, unhindered came and created a blood bath.

The army was only a few hundred left. Many died or deserted. No general, corporal, kernel and such dared to investigate cities struck by the plague. It was all hopeless. None of the army's efforts helped to solve and sway the demon fiend.

Some in the darkness of woods and homes were actually worshipping the God of Blood. They were praying to him for forgiveness. They prayed to have the strength of suicide and mercy.

The demon's plans were working. The land was in the thrall of panic. People gathered in caravans, heading into the capital and lordly castles to survive. They left the cattle and crops to die in the fields as the Decay had full reign over the abandoned land. The sky was red, no more blue skys and white clouds. It was a storm of red clouds and darkness.

The wheat and grasses were withered. The ground was painted red with blood. The homes and towns were forgotten and left to rot; some were burned to charred ash. Trees of the forest were dying. Animals were rotting dead. Even the maggots who feed on their putrid flesh were dead. Vultures were living near the inhabited Capital and Goudhum. There they were safe from the plague.

The only creatures to survive were the swarms of ravens.

They feasted on people's bodies, animals, and raised their lecherous young in the dead dry stumps of trees. Bloody red flesh was fed to their evil young ones as the ravens imbued the powers of blood and death.

They were all ready to swarm and feed upon the dead of the last humans of the land.

The land of millions was decimated to several hundred.

A year went by. The nobles hid in their homes, either dying by The Red Death's means or surviving in the capital. Peasants fled and were robbed of their money and goods, and sent to scrounge into corners to starve and hide in the Capital. They huddled together to keep warm, and cared not for the fleas and lice that bit them, or the fevers and colds of regular diseases. Nor the lack of good water, spare shelter, and food beyond rats and birds. The beak doctors helped, and the more that died everyday the more room there was.

Virginia was living with the Prince. She was going to turn 18 soon.

Several miles away was the edge of the red sky. The rest of the sky above the city was cloudy gray, but 4 miles away there was the rest of the county's sky: Deep red clouds. There was a circle around the city.

There was no more order. No more middle class, no merchants, fisherman, farmers, peddlers, bards and knights. No army, no schoolteachers, no tutors and grocers. The blacksmith's fires were burned, the fish market was filled with no more fish, and the meat and vegetables were almost gone. The city of thousands was decimated and empty of almost no life. It seemed that all the colors and life's luster was sucked out of the buildings. Everything was gray and brown. Dust was settled everywhere and the paved roads had weeds and grass growing between the cobblestones. Gardens in front of buildings of art and temples were overgrown. The orchards with decorative fruits were plucked of their fruits by the small starving population.

There were only 200 hundred people left. Men, women and children. They had gathered in the farthest corner of the large expansive city, taking refuge in the caves of the Old Wall.

The Capital had been standing since many, many hundreds of years ago. There were many portions of the wall rebuilt and re-fortified. One of them in the far section of the South-West hadn't been renovated since a hundred years ago. Inside were caves and rooms in the catacombs under the wall since even before the wall was erected.

There, the people thought they were safe from the plague. They had the feeling that the plague would probably come within a few weeks, or even sooner. They all had mostly stopped dying thanks to the herbs and strength of the few beak doctors among them. They had scrambled enough edible material for the next week. They could only hope, pray, and wait in the catacombs eating their rats and molding bread.

Industry had all been stopped. The rich and the poor were living in filth in the only dry and safe place left in the entire country.

But the noble blood was still alive too.

There, on the mountain of The Kings, was an old castellated abbey. It was the fortress from battles past where the first kings gathered to fight for Labarverion. It was cold, isolated from the rest of the city, and just right by the edge of the red sky. It was there and always there, generations old, and it's architecture that of the grim and darkest of man's fashion. Gargoyles, contorted features and spiked spires. Black fold stone and wrought metal, with curious gothic art styling to create a thin decadent piece of terrible art. It looked like something unnatural had grown forth as a thick ugly tree on the ugly mountain crag. A sense of decay and horror was about it, like there was an aura radiating from it.

It was there that the nobles were gathered. Within a few days barons, dukes, generals, counts, chancellors, magistrate, and all of wealth and royal blood that were alive went into the abbey. Prospero was waiting with his entertainments, his wild beasts and dancers, musicians, food and tricks and celebration. He waited on his blue throne in the grand hall as the blue bloods came to survive and live in the rooms. They came out of fear though they never showed it. They still smiled and held their heads up high, as if they were not afraid that they would die very soon.

For they thought that they were here to escape.

They blinded themselves to the danger and the impending doom. They sat and stuffed themselves in the farthest corner of the plague, hiding behind heavy thick walls and the protective charms that supposedly would protect them from death. All their homes that were ruins now lay beyond the castle, and now they hid in a cage of luxury.

The doors were shut. The walls were barbed and guarded. The nooks and holes to escape from were sealed. None could escape once the drawbridge gate was finally sealed.

The outside looked evil, foreboding, clawed and trapping its inhabitants inside it self. They could not escape.

But insides it was a decadent palace.

The halls were garbed in vulgar colors, tapestries of brilliant hues and paintings of rich nobles and hunting, and bowls of fine fruit. Tables were leaden with feasts and wine and they filled themselves with the fruits of hard peasant labor, who were now dead in un hallowed graves or on in their fields. There were butlers and servants, frightened maids and cooks, cleaners and pages. They came with their masters mostly out of the hope that they will cheat death. They served their lords and ladies and their children. They too felt that they would survive the terrors of the plague and be rewarded when it had passed.

There was a small courtyard that let in light to the garden. There were urns of flowers, there was wine and hundreds upon hundreds of rooms. There were two libraries. There were vaults filled with gems and treasure. There were baths and pools to bathe in. There was banquet halls, game rooms, armories, and a fencing chamber.

It was all ready the week before, when Victor Prospero, the bold and strong for his young age at 26 started refurbish the place. And when it was all done he transferred himself there and invited all the royalty and their servants un-plagued to join him in surviving the end of the world.

When the caravans of wagons and carriages started their lonely climb up the mountain the people of the capital, starving and filthy and left to die in the city swarmed to them. They begged to be let in to safety, they threw stones at them they gave their strength to curse the nobility, the monarchs who were starving them of money and food for the past decade. They were held off by the last of the army, the lowly soldier happy that they would be in the castle to survive but sad that they were beating off their own people to die in the wilderness. The generals and above however were just as pompous and snotty as the nobility. They would at least be happy and safe, and when the plague left the land their armies would help rebuild what was left.

And so the almost a hundred royalties locked themselves in the abbey. The weak mob of people left went down the mountain and wondered what they should do. So they hid and scrambled the last of the food to hopefully, at least, survive. If not, they begged to each other that they wished to die peacefully. They had been through too much pain in the years. The decimation of this being, this god, this devil that had an entire empire to its knees was now ready to destroy everything. It was no human, for no human could wish to obliterate the world. No human possessed such power. It was inconceivable to think that this fiend appeared in the form of a man with a skull head, lavicious lips, long red hair and dashing royal red garb. They knew what he looked like. He made his presence known, and he had appeared several times to the Prince's betrothed.

One would hope that he would have immediately found another fiancé to replace her, one more noble since the death of the last of the Mauchdoms. But for some reason he still stayed and held her as his future wife. Of course, she had no choice in the matter. She was a woman and that was that. However Victor Prospero did not abandon the general's daughter. In fact the rumor already had gotten out that in fact Virginia was adopted from a peasant family who was burned to death by The Red Death. As such, he had made his appearance to her at the capital art museum when she was 10, at her 14th birthday and even harassing her on her 16th. Out of all these appearances, a person close to her has died. She was left without a father, her best friend, and her even closer brother. She was a woman of mystery. She was considered the most smartest and political savvy woman in the government, and was known for her cold, strong and dispassionate standings and words. She lectured; she fought for the common man and insulted the current state of leadership. She could not be stopped from raising the torch up high from the chains of bound servitude to the state of womanhood and being shunned from the ignorant, selfish plotting aristocracy. Prospero did everything in his power to keep her down and kept like a pet for him. Soon he planned on marrying, her whenever she did not know. She only hoped that if she did she would make sure he would stay faithful to her and he would rue the day he wished to have her at his side. If they survived she would help the people. Even if she had to suffer beatings and him raping her, she would laugh in his face.

Such as she was, she was a strong woman. She wanted to save them all as best she can though all her attempts failed. But she kept trying. She was hardened and ruthless from all the death and destruction that befell her family and the land.

Innocents died and were murdered in terrible agony. Demons and devils and other creatures that were summoned to his need defied the laws of the gods that the people worshipped. The priest's couldn't explain why, oh why a demon lord was allowed to come and destroy all that was good and prosperous. Now he had almost completely triumphed and was now saving the deathblow for the last of this country's humanity. Then, the priests knew, that he would move on to the other weaker nations.

The nobles now reigned over the dead in the fields.

They were bred only to hurt others and themselves with sin. Now they could not fight but only hide. They knew in their black hearts they were beaten.

"Let us gather and stay here, and be merry while a new world is reborn!" Prince Victor Prospero bellowed hiding his fear. The hundred nobles in the great hall cheered round the banquet table.

"Together when the plague is done, we shall come out and our servants shall work the land, and we will make the world again anew! Praise the gods and goddesses! They have blessed us with this haven." He toasted with his goblet of wine.

"Blessed are we!" The nobility toasted and the clinking of glasses was ended, as they drank deep the liquor in their glasses.

Virginia lightly sipped as she sat besides Prospero.

And so they feasted that first night on pheasants and seafoods, beef and lamb, calves and soups, salads and rice and pasta and pastries. They sang merry songs and laughed. They told their crude jokes and boasted. They became drunken and wild and danced in the ballroom. Till midnight it was, and they left the halls to pass out on their lavish beds or engage in passionate sinful revelry, countesses forgetting their husbands and making fools of themselves with dukes and lords. There was no law, no morality. The first three days the halls were filled with sounds of laughter, songs, pattering feet, music and love making.

Virginia sat in solitude in the far corner of the library, hiding her fear of The Red Death.

She was no child. She was a mature woman. She had received some invitations to join the hundred for tea, fencing, garden tours and orgies in the rooms but no, she was not too low for this. She walked the halls with stiff proud strides and stared ahead with her cold black dresses and purple hats. She was in her own world as all around her was hell. She would walk to places of hidden comfort and solitude while snotty children ran past, women were chased by men, dukes inviting her for a drink attempting to take her hand, women spitting at her and conversing about vanity.

She blocked them away. There was no real hope that was driving her, for she knew The Red Death will come and take her away, killing or no killing. She was to be used in a plot. And she was all alone with others she trusted to help her.

She trusted no one. Not even her mother.

It was the third day. She stood still as a statue in a dark purple dress. Her hat had a veil over her face and her poofy sleeves drooped. She was an elegant statue at that, gazing at the sea down the mountain. The sea looked red like blood, for even the red sky of the sunset and the plague in the heavens shone and the choppy waters, once limpid blue was raging in the evening and red. She sighed. She did not care for the cool breeze, it was colder than that of the late summer for which it was time.

Her mother the Lady Dulcinia was down the elegant bawdy hallway. She knew her foster daughter was in her bedroom, looking out the large window to the sea. And she was standing with Victor Prospero.

Dulcinia was distraught. In fact she never was quite the same since her husband died and then the disaster at Virginia's 14th birthday. And her own son…slaughtered with plague. And her daughter…almost molested.

She was not competent. She was senile and easy to manipulate.

Victor was however the manipulator.

"You know this will do her good…" Victor said in his deceptively charming voice.

"I know. She needs you, I just know! I feel it around her, she needs to know how much you love her, she needs to become happy." Lady Dulcinia chattered. She was old and twitching, smiling happily as she gave him her permission to…do things before the wedding night.

"I will make her happy. She will be truly thankful I'm sure. I'm glad you have given me permission." Victor gave a crafty smile as he adjusted his cravat.

It was the custom of the land that a man, if he was already betrothed to her, with permission from both or one of her guardians, could mate with her before the wedding. That is, if he had their permission.

And currently, he did get it while he was having some coffee and biscuits in the garden with her.

_Such a stupid woman. She knows nothing at all. I have her wrapped around my little finger…_So thought Prospero as he bade her good night and headed down the hall to seduce his fair lady.

_I'll teach her a few things about who's in charge of this country. _He thought and gave a snicker. She would rue the day she would argue and debate the laws that kept him and their like in power and wealth! And he would thoroughly enjoy this…he had waited to long to bed his future wife. He was sure she would soften after this night.

He knocked quietly and he heard his cue.

"Come in." Virginia tiredly sighed. She still stood gazing out the window.

His smile turned into feigned concern as he entered, softly closing and locking the door and putting his feathered hat swiftly to the small table by the door. She knew what he was doing, that with locking the door, putting his hat away and quietly sneaking up behind her with a false face. However Virginia was not the greatest intellect in the world, and she did not think Victor would be that audacious to strike before the wedding.

"My darling…my sweet little petunia…" Victor purred sweetly by her ear. His arms slowly moved to encircle her waist. However, his 'little petunia' was more like a 'stiff statue'.

"What do you wish from me, Victor?" She added a hint of disgust at the sound of his name. Victor only liked this spitefulness more.

"I wish all your love. And I wish it now." He purred once again.

"I don't love you. I never will. Love isn't just a tool of adoration, it's more than that and you don't understand it." She turned her head to face him with her deep cold glare. She meant serious business.

"You are so hardened and encased with stone my dear. When will you let your inner self prove that you actually do love me?" He still purred and smiled warmly. It was however not warm at all but hiding cunning deceiving plots. His desire for her and his selfish behavior only made him feel more invincible.

"I never have. The first time I saw you as a child, I thought you were a rude boy. After my foster father's death I saw you as a ignorant adolescent. When my sister died I saw you as an egotistical man-whore. On my 16th you made me feel you were mad and off balance with such strange grisly eccentric plots and strange entertainments. And now, you disgust me with your poor leadership and cowardliness." She stared even deeper into his eyes. His smile threatened to turn into a frown, but he held himself in check. It wasn't like him to be cowed by a woman's word.

"You are truly fit to be Princess. But you can't be if you don't please the Prince." Victor pulled her stronger to his body. Her side collided with his chest, indicating all too well what he wanted from her tonight.

"If I don't have to be Princess, then so be it. I'd rather live as serf than becoming your royal whore." She turned her head away. Still he held her close to his body by grasping hips.

"But I want you to be my Princess. I want you to be a good woman and help me rule the new world and not insult our monarchy." He grasped her chin with some slick sexual menace in his voice. "Isn't that clear?"

"I am a person that does what I will. I will reform and make the world a better place since you want me to be your wife. You cannot stop me." Her voice was still defiant.

Victor growled and pulled her into his arms fully. And then he kissed her.

She waited till he was done smacking kisses on her lips and roughly exploring her mouth. He stopped for breath, his hand reaching behind to undo the ribbon that held his hair back. He had long straight light brown hair, a beautiful shade but it was not what Virginia was paying attention to really.

"You see, if you swear that you will stop insulting and trying to change things I will not have to endeavor to show how much of a loving, 'evil' person I am tonight." He suddenly turned serious. She looked back and saw how much lust was in his eyes. They were on fire with it.

"You have no right to rape me. You have no right to even threaten me!" She hissed.

"I have your mother's permission. Such a manipulative old toad she is…but at least she agrees about who is more superior. You my dear have no say!" He growled and truly, he was on fire with lust.

She knew that someday this would happen. Too long had he looked at her with the desire to bed her. It was obvious, in this unholy castle that the right to free reign of sinful pleasures would give him the reason why he should make love, anytime her wanted. And Virginia was his favorite girl, besides her unsavory attitude to his ways.

He did not care. He would relish this as much as he could as, he hoped, they would suddenly strip themselves and hop right into her bed.

He was quite wrong however. It was not as simple as that if you had an unwilling partner.

Without panicking, she went about to try to pry herself out from Victor's arms. However he knew that she would try that first. He held her tightly against his body and proceeded to drag her back to the bed. The black sheeted bed was fit for at least three people perfect for the romp he awaited on the bed. He had dreamed of this moment, of finally feeling her, of finally touching every single part of her skin…

Virginia was pushed down on the bed with Victor's drooling growling head by her neck. Se was disgusted with such irrational behavior, more proof to her how much of an animal he was. She did not intend however to spend the night losing her virginity to such a wretched selfish man, and she made about her attempts to push him off her. He kept scooting her more into the middle of the bed and she soon realized that her strength was not good enough to push him directly off her.

As he went to sit more on top of her and undo her hair she started another idea. Her arms were free and her face in a snarl as she tried to push on his knees. He already pulled his cravat and his jacket off revealing a thin white shirt.

"Such a feisty vixen…" He laughed. Virginia was not about to be frozen with fear. He was just a jackass too sure of himself that he was going to succeed in raping her. She could deal with trying to get him off her body.

"I just want you to get away from me." She hissed and still was mostly unsuccessful with pushing him off her. He took this time to take his shirt off, revealing his somewhat muscular hairless chest. She took a few moments to stare at his abs and try to calculate how she was going to remove him. As she scanned his appearance she noticed the rising bulge in his pants and his hands going over the start the process of untying her corset from the front.

She smacked at his hands, and he withdrew scowling in pain at the slapping. He picked up the speed this time and this time made it past the smacking and clawing at his arms as he grabbed her breasts. He had always wanted to do that…They were always so plump and just bursting over the corsets and in the confines of her dresses…Now they were actually in his hands!

The pleasure was short lived. She scratched him on the face and started bucking and grunting in her desperation to dislodge his hands from her chest.

He roared in pain and withdrew, holding his face that was bleeding from the cuts. Her nails were somewhat long and she was utterly furious at him. She would not, at any cost, be subjected to this especially against her will!

She he groaned in pain she went about to flip to her side, rear up and shove him off. He was quite distracted and soon he was being kicked and punched in the face by her heels. Snarling and crying out in pain he grasped her dress to scramble back at her, but she quickly got him off and ran out the room.

Bleeding and cut, he soon found that Virginia had left the room. He was left panting and angry and beaten by a mere woman, his future wife!

Gathering his ribbons and other clothing that was pulled off, he redressed himself and summoned up his pride. He waltzed out of the room with his head held high in the air, despite the slashes at his face and his immediate need for first aid. He set a leisurely pace back to his royal chambers, Lady Dulcinia puzzled. She usually was, not understanding her daughter's will for freedom in a society that had none.

Virginia had ran off into the library, setting up a lounge chair in the corner to spend the night on. She had no fear that he would come after her tonight. She would make sure she was a light sleeper anyways. She could imagine Victor cursing under his breathe as he applied some bandages to his ruined handsome face. She had easily triumphed and removed the pest from her room.

If she wasn't any stronger, she would have been weak and screaming in fright. She smiled at herself.

She was proud she could defend herself with such tenacity. She was very strong, strong willed and strong ideals. She knew she was now truly considered a woman of power. No one could weaken her, no one could stop her, and no threats and tortures would make her change her mind if she knew that it was the right thing to do. She was flexible too, flexible in ideals and actually possessing the ability of compassion. But there was nothing that needed her love and affection. Only her work that she hoped, that she desperately hoped she would do.

That is, if The Red Death succeeded in his horrible plan. The entire nobility and herself were sitting ducks locked in a castle. The rest of the people were hiding and dying in the abandoned city.

She wished she was with them to share their suffering til the very end. But she was brought here only as property, and she would use this to her advantage to finally help the world when she will become co-ruler of the land…if it still lives by the end of the week…

**A/N: Well…things getting more darker…It's also near the end of this tale!**

**Thanks for the review ForeverACharmedOne!**

**Shoys.**


	16. Chapter 16: Sun and Moon

**A/N: I'm lazy…the chapter's short…**



"My lords and ladies…the masquerade shall begin tonight!"

Prince Prospero declared to his guests at breakfast. The audience clapped and cheered.

Virginia sat at the other end of the table in silence.

"This masquerade will last forever and ever until the world is free of the Red Death! I, your prince, promise you that this party will be the strangest and most exciting party the world has ever known."

"You may know that there is a wing of the castle that is blocked off. Well, this afternoon, it shall be opened, revealing the pride of this castle. The Seven Rooms."

The guests started chattering amongst themselves. A masquerade? What fun! What sinful delights that can amaze the eye at a masquerade!

What sin could tempt and confuse righteous Virginia?

"Come my fellow nobles…come and see for yourself the rooms!" Prospero smiled and chuckled in his own mischievous way, slipping off the throne and leading the parade of nobles down the halls.

Virginia followed with her mother. Lady Dulcinia was still angry about her daughter refusing the great Prince Prospero. How indignant!

They went to the west wing tramping with their fine shoes.

There was a large dance hall, shrouded in black cloth so all was dark. There was a stand for an orchestra, and to the far end of the black covered room was a magnificent stairway.

Gilded, golden and red, it was beautiful and covered with ornate carvings. It was the only room that wasn't covered with black sheets. And the door was even more beautiful and ornate, golden and shining. There were fleur delis, gargoyles, cherubs, flowers, ivy and birds gilded and craved in the gold and bejeweled door. It was tall and large and black curtains shrouded the edges. It was truly a work of art.

The procession followed the prince through the small doorway that they were in and went across the ebony and gold dance floor. The sheets covered the walls and everything, hiding the true appearance of the large ballroom.

Prospero strode up the velvet red stairs with ease. The nobles were loathe putting their feet on such a red carpet, but it was the taste their prince provided and they wished to enter the rooms.

"You may come no farther. You will see the procession of the rooms after you are dressed in your proper attire. But know thus there are seven rooms, sevens room filled with wonder. You may dance in the rooms, be amazed by the menagerie of splendors particular to each throughout."

"This room is the main reception hall. It is covered with black to hide it's beauty till the masquerade. Through this door are the rooms, and at he farthest one, the Black Room, is the ticking clock. All must obey and stand still as it strikes the hours till the chiming ends. That is the only rule." He smiled as the guests applauded. All were excited for the ball! Weeks and weeks of revelry and wildness!

Virginia bowed her head and hoped that she could hide away.

"Once we are inside the west wing, the other wings of the castle shall be locked till the end of the masque. Here will be the endless lights and bells of humanity and this masquerade shall go down…as the night of life! We will survive! And now…now go, dress yourselves my friends, and come hither for the party of a lifetime!"

The guests ran! They cheered and screamed as they left the floor of the sun and moon and went to dress in their costumes. Virginia was the last to leave, heading through the door.

Prospero watched and strayed behind her. He was still angry about last night and watched her leave.

_She will be mine…she will be my wife! In two day's time she will be married to me and no one can stop me! _He smirked. _I hope she will like her dress…it is befitting for a harbinger of death. _Again he smiled hoping she would like the dress he placed in her room…

**A/N: R&R!**

**Shoys.**


	17. Chapter 17: The Seven Rooms

**A/N: Sorry it's been so long! I was gone at a music camp for two weeks and am working on a few other project…but at last, here is a nice chapter of the seven rooms.**



And so the Masque began.

All the foul creatures of the earth had gathered here t dance in sin.

They were the nobility of a certain country befouled by their whim and arrogant presence.

Now they were here to escape the death that awaited them outside these walls. Here they were living in illusions and fraud. Here the law was only thus: sin with noble revelry.

And so they did. And so she stood in the centre of the hall, with the symbol of the night shining as the moon from the chandelier.

The music was delicate and strange with its harmonies. Sometimes the musicians played with joyful minuets, or minor sonatas, or lively snapping dances or suites of mourning. Whichever it was, the masque dancers giggled and sang as they danced.

The hall was of gold and the tiled floor with jewels at their feet. The stars and sun, and moon glittered with their diamonds and topaz. The statues seemed to be posed in states of sin. Terrible but beautiful ornamentation was decorating the stairs, the walls, the banisters and bowls of fire. Cherubs, flowers, gargoyles, demons, flame and creatures were wrought with masterwork metals. Beauty abounded with demons. Parades of colors flashed before her eyes in the midst of the swirling dances.

She must move on. There were the seven other rooms to explore.

Up the stairs she climbed dressed in her finest.

All around the guests that were chatting, dancing, parading drunkenly or kissing were staring after her. Their costumes were hues of all shades….except red. Red was banned. Red was the symbol of death. Only she chose to wear her dress.

Their eyes either averted away or blinked. They were glittering through the eyes of their masks. Whether as animals, birds, flowers or fey they were dressed they saw he costume as death.

The Lady Red Death.

Long dark red like drying blood and black ribbons tight and taut compiled her gown. She moved with elegance with her golden hair pulled back into a pony tail adorned with rubies and gold. Her hat was large…red…black and gold.

There was no need to place skull jewelry to emphasize her cursed life. Her face was already pale as bone.

She walked like a hollow shell. Like she was a ghost in fear. She knew that sometime soon he would come. He would come to claim her and destroy all the happiness in the world. All that was beautiful and uncorrupted was to die. And she could do nothing about that but live as long as possible and hope there will be happiness for her…in the future…someday…

Without thinking she passed by the bowl of blue fire. It swirled and lit the short dark hallways. She heard sweet music through the entranceway to the other side.

Softly she stepped into the blue light of the room.

The Blue Room, as it was called, was pale plastered walls of a sky blue. On a stand were harp players and flutests playing soft melodious music, simple and delicate. There were fountains and pools of water in the large room and women and men sat there, splashing the water and holding the blue lilies in their hands. There was soft giggling and warm smiles on the masquerader's faces as they glided through the room. Water and scented candles were lit, and small blue butterflies flitted through the room. The sound of cage blue birds rang out to accompany the harps and flutes. All was peaceful and melodious, soft and simple. All seemed good and honest.

However it was honest as the symbols tried to convey. She stood by the main fountain with the blue geese and floating candles, looking at the flickering faces. She saw lovers lie. She knew those counts and barons here had wives, or had something they stole. She heard them lie to each other, speaking in soft tones and deceit in their eyes. Here was the rule that one must be truthful in peace here. But their minds were embroiled with anger and deceit. This place of honesty was corrupted with lies. Eyes flashed with uncertainty. Words spoken untruthfully to each other. All in the quiet of blue peace.

Sickened, she moved on to the dark hallway straight ahead. This time, she came into purple room. The purple fire in the bowl created gloomy shadows.

The room was a royal purple. The walls and precipices were with gargoyles and ornate Amethyst jewels. A small fountain was in the corner, and in the middle of the tiled purple floor was a stage where magicians were performing their work. There were thrones and ornate chairs where the guests sat in pride and confidence. There were French hornists and brass playing waltzes, and wine and guests were covered with jewels. It was a place perfect for the nobles of the old courts to gather. A place where the guests were being pampered. The lady's nails were being done, shoes were shined and fruit was everywhere. Magicians preformed tricks and hats, doves and rabbits from their hats and illusions. Arrogance…glittering arrogance.

They glared back at her and raised their noses. Such filth! Such a low class woman, wearing red of all things, engaged to the king! Soon someday she will be married. When, they did not know. Only that Virginia wished that she was never here or even born. The way Prospero had his eye son her. They way he had already tried to lay her…

She shook hr head, getting sick of the arrogant masqueraders in this room.

She walked past the dancing guests and the arrogant snots, not wanting to be silently ridiculed. The hallway this time was lit by green sprightly fire.

She was dazzled by the brightness of the room. Green everywhere, with harlequin patterns and the sounds of tambourines and flutes playing jigs!

Jesters bounded around with their lutes and flutes. They threw confetti at the guests. Jokes and laughter were everywhere. The buffoons bounded and strode around her with their noisemakers and surprises. Virginia made her was to the fountain filled with frogs and water lilies. Here she saw the room filled with plants and foliage of green.

People were laughing at her. They sat lazy while they were entertained; they pointed their figures and said cruel things. She wished not to hear them as they ridiculed her. The jokers threw coins at her, and the guests. The hordes of them stooped, picking up the gold for their greed. All was not to share a laugh. All for greed…greed of wealth, greed of being the better of them all.

She felt sick at this room too. Here this room was to be a celebration of life, to share it. None was apparent.

Past the pot of emeralds, she moved into the hallway to the next room.

The hallway was brightly lit with the orange fire here. It was thick and heavy.

The room perfectly reflected the fire in the hall before the door.

The music was by bright and heavy brass. The loud blasting trumpet was over the din of conversation and drunken songs. The entire room was a long round table with the orange walls. Bright lamps and light lit the feast!

There was a feast. Wine and song, breads and cheeses, roasted fowl and stuffed pork and soups. There were all sorts of delicacies and rich food, the aromas making Virginia hunger. The room too had a fountain, but it was a fountain of beer. She sat in a chair, looking at the delicious meats and hearty food around her. Servants came and went filling glasses and putting out more platters of food.

But only the disturbed could eat and drink here.

The show was the bizarre, the mutilated. Hunchbacks and dwarves, tall and thin, the ugly and the fire breathers and the tricksters. The paraded around and stuck out their tongues and preformed other strange and disgusting talents. And they all in their revelry laughed and were entertained. The house of sin was further outraged with the vile people and creatures here. It was a sick circus, filled with evil clowns entertaining the even more evil residents.

She couldn't eat any of the food here. She had to leave to save her sanity of the Orange Room.

As she ran with her red gown the clowns and the freaks clung to her. Their claws and slimy fingers and paint dripped, she gasped and fought them off as the gluttonous feasters laughed and ate. What waste of food! Topaz's scattered at her feet, such waste and sin…

She made it to the hallways after her fight with the bizarre and the swine of the nobility.

There was some hope, she thought. The hallway was bright and white. The fire bowl here was hot and shit, thin and incensed.

The room was a dazzling white, pure and beautiful! Stone columns and white candles and sweet white flowers! The room spoke of simplicity and diamonds studded the walls. Here there were cellos, harps and strings and soft flutes playing simple and beautiful music. All was innocent.

Children here played and ran. The musicians wore simple white, there were Cherub and angel paintings on the ceiling. The ceiling itself was blue and with clouds, a painting of the sky. The center of the room was where the children played. Mothers and young men and women stood and watched, singing happy songs surrounded by white and simple beauty. All was good, all was innocent…

Or at least, the dancers here were portraying innocent happiness. There was nothing like that here. Here the bejeweled masqueraders were fighting in the light for jewels and glory. Here was covetness, deceit, and jealously. This room seemed to be masked with purity, covering the sinners in the billows of white angel gowns.

She stood surrounded by the singing children, the brats taunting her and pulling at the red dress. Virginia scowled down at them, kicking them off and running past to the next room.

_I was innocent once…all I have left is my dignity and my virtue. _

She felt threatened at every turn that she would be tainted by the sins here.

The next hallways provided some comfort from the macabre version of white in the last room. Here was a purplish blue flame, with rainbow smoke and the heavy scent of alluring incense. Her mind immediately started feeling fuzzy, her eyes seeming to feel…soft and the world…hazy…

_What tricks are these the prince has done? This room must be filled with these vile intoxications…_she thought. She wanted to get past this room as soon as possible, for she feared her mind would warp with the drugs staining the air.

She ran through the entryway to behold the illusionist's spectacle.

The room was the color of violet. The air was in a haze with colored smoke and incense burners of drugs and herbs. There were colored silks hanging like curtains, and people in the doldrums laying and breathing their fantasies. Acrobats and trapeze artists were on the ceiling swinging to and fro, and levitation tricks and illusions galore ensnaring the sense…trapping her sanity behind the mask of fog and the opal mist.

She could feel herself move past the center, the dancers playing with the silks and leaping around in the strange revelry. But she couldn't feel. Her eyes were filled with shadows of color, and her sense of sight, sound and smell were deceived. She only wished to get out of here as fast as possible to avoid any permanent affects of the drugs.

She stumbled through the dark hallway. Coughing, her mind was becoming clearer as she went past the blazing bowl of the red fire.

_This must be the last room…_She thought. She hoped so, for she wished after she explored this hellish fantasy to find the room to spend time in, whittling away the hours and days that she would spend in this masquerade. She was not allowed to go back into the inner castle.

All was shut and sealed. If she could escape into the halls, perhaps the Red Death would claim her there. She would be alone in the dark with nothing but the wind from the broken windows, and the ghastly tatters of the curtains stained and abandoned would be the only witness to her demise.

She stood in the gateway; she stood ready to open the black thin curtain into the final room of the colors.

The Room of Black.

Out the curtain she went, holding her breath as she beheld the sight of the final room.

Black. All black with tints of red, rubies glittering in the firelight. There were lounges and sofas around, littered with bodies convulsing and moaning.

She knew what this room was. It was a room that had no mask or seemed to be of good intentions. It was simply the symbol of evil and lust.

Sex and violence.

Blood and death.

She stood trembling, seeing things that she had forever been running away from. Things she feared in the black and red that lit the room. She heard the cries of passion as masqueraders in lust had cast aside their garments save the masks…and were in masses procreating in a symphony of forbidden sinful sex.

Everywhere. The floor. The wall. The furniture. And even Prince Prospero was doing it on the throne.

"You pig…" She hissed.

Victor Prospero himself didn't expect her to get through the rooms quickly and arrive here. He was too busy being serenaded by his lone violist in the room, and being ridden by the hordes of masked women that had come and wished to ride the lap of the prince himself.

Quickly he pushed the brunette off him, fastening his pants but not bothering to button up his tunic. Slowly he reached to the table and put his hat on.

"A pleasure to see you here…my virgin bride." He smirked and tried to remain his cool.

She glared, ignoring the sounds and the sweat around her.

"You have no sense of good, do you? You have created seven rooms that seemed to represent values of right…but in fact they are the tortured bizarre antics of evil! Sin and desolation! This room of blackness and red lust has gone to the madness of hell!" She pointed her finger at him, spitting the words.

"You always knew my love for the bizarre, Virginia. It is you who must change. You think that a life of normality…in a place so desolated…is the way. But the world has gone to madness, my love." He purred and leaned from his throne. "The bizarre will inherent the world in sin. Sin is what will make us survive."

He put his blue feathery mask on and hopped down from the black throne. She stepped back and was eyeing him warily, horrified at his lack of judgment.

"When the Red Death comes…he will smite you. I would rather be his wife than yours. I'd rather bed the gods of death than lay with you. You may torment me with the displays of evil and your strange entertainment, but I will prevail and live through this." She turned her back. He still smiled at her, loving to torture her with his 'disgusting' and 'strange' habits.

"The Red Death cannot come! The priests have blessed the doors, and we will all be safe here…and you…in my arms…" Enamored with the moment he wrapped his arms around her. She hissed and shrugged him off her back.

"You are no prince. You deserve nothing from me. And you deserve no mercy for the lies you have spun. All of them will die because you have lied. You have lied to yourself too and committed yourself to this blind death you have chosen. Tell me, will it be worth your efforts here when the plague makes you bleed to death? Nothing…can stop it…now."

Ignorance was not bliss for them. This strange feeling inside her made her queasy at the sight and feeling of these rooms. The atmosphere was perfect for breeding hostilities and lies. It was the most elegant mask of darkness she had ever seen and experienced. The whole castle was in the bizarre.

She knew she must leave. She must find some quiet corner to hide the day out and hope that this would all stop. The only one that could end this masquerade was believed to be locked out. The Red Death, she knew, would always find a way inside.

Breaking free of Prospero's grasp, she ran to the black clock at the end of the room. It was constructed of dark wood and metal adorned with candles and dark, hollow faces. It was macabre and dark, the clock face like cracked beige china and the ticking sound seemed loud, her body vibrating with each tick.

It struck the hour, 11 o'clock.

All the persons stopped their movements to listen. It was the wishes of the prince that as the clock chimed the hour; all would stop in homage of time.

She ran, ran past the stand still guests. Down the halls whence she came from, through the rooms of the colors she felt the strange feeling she was being watched, and going to be terrorized by a familiar face.

The guests stood. The children stopped their singing. The fountains were the only sounds. The music paused their melodies. All was quiet save for the dark chimes of the bells. The clock struck 11, so close to midnight when she felt…something was not right.

Tonight was the night. Tonight was when He would come…



**A/N: I'll also be gone in a few days to my grandparents, where I will be writing more and more and you'll get plenty of updates on my stories when I get back. Isn't that great? So REVIEW and tell me about it!**

**Shoys.**


	18. Chapter 18: Enter the Masque

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Well well…another chappie! YAY!**

**I'll give you a cookie if you spot the Alice Cooper reference. Really.**



Long shadows. Dark words. The chill of the night. Mystic waves of stars lit the boulders around the castle walls. The moon batched the dark castle, the only lights from the east end where the sounds of riotous laughter, music, singing and sin were heard.

The people that were cast aside, there were many hiding in the shadows of the city. They felt hardly safe, exposed in the cold of the caves, dousing the light of their cooking fires. They knew death would come. He would come, and he would kill them all.

Men, women and children heard the echoes of the castle above them on the mountain crag. They looked out the holes and windows, keeping warm and listening to the masquerade. They hoped the Red Death will take the monarchs first.

Everyone was on their guard. The abandoned city was all dark, with only a few rats pawing around and the lonely chirp of a cricket.

Soon that too stopped. All was deathly silent, with shadows everywhere from the moonlight and making everything even more ghostly.

The only sounds were the sea and the hundred living people breathing.

Then there was the sight of a man.

The main path to the city gate east was closed and locked. The road was paved and tiled, a beautiful testament to pavement.

Shambling forward to the gate, in bright moonlight was a tall man…in a red funeral robe.

All the people gasped, silently drawing back into the dirty caves that were their homes. The women trembled; their children not truly understand that him, The Red Death, might head over to them and kill them all.

But The Red Death kept moving. He kept shambling at an even pace to the door. His heavy wrinkled robes left a trail of blood behind him. The hood over his face hid the menace that was him. No mist came. It seemed he was not issuing the plague…yet.

He stood in front of the tall, stone gate. Its shadow was immense, bathing him in completely darkness. The people could not find his form within the shadow. Fear doubled.

The Red Death looked around, seeing those trembling people watching what he would do with the gate. The embodiment of fear and terror seemed get a rush from their frightened emotions.

No stone could him.

The people watched and prayed all would be silent, so as to not draw his attention. The Red Death…had turned into a strange creature…

Of mist, with a vague form of a bird. And it flew high and red, slowly flying over the crumbling stone and into the sky.

Its shadow was hideous as it flew; making it's way up the mountain to the castle.

The people watched. They watched the great bird of death land and morph back to the form of a robed man.

Now he was alone out in the cold.

The smell of sweet meats and feasting and wine came to his senses. The sound of life, however sinful, was drawing him to its warmth. How he longed to quench it…

The stone turrets and gargoyles were ornate and flowery. It was easy for his clawed hands to grip as he crawled up the steep sides. No one was outside at this side, and so as mist he seeped through the balcony doors.

No interest he took as he slinked through the rooms. The abandoned rooms were already collecting dust upon the wasted finery. He stalked through the halls, past the fruit and the gold and the furniture and satin. The darkness only made this place of bright life into a grim desolate place.

The wind whistled. Tonight, he truly felt the Guardians watching him. Guiding him, his powers being strengthened as he readied to do what he had always wanted.

The doors he would reach soon. The East wing was ready to be destroyed and it inhabitant's into puddles of blood.

The god paused, looking around.

There were old, dusty paintings on the walls, aged tapestries, stonework and the architecture…

_Oh how he's changed it…its all painted blue. _He sighed, pausing under paintings of kings and queens and princes and princesses from years past.

_It will be red by midnight._

The dark, cold hallow place was empty. Only he, he who burned with a dark fire in him was the light in this place. The moonlight made his robes pale.

Memories. They came in a flash of white and red. Like blood, the faces of his past suddenly flooded his vision.

_Not now. Not now, when I must exact my revenge. _He scowled in his head. The door to the hall and the Seven Rooms was heavily barricaded.

But as mist, nothing of the physical could stop one who was not of that plane.

_Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance._ He chanted as he seeped into the light of the other side.

_What I want. What I need. _The mist saw the dancers moving, oblivious to the red mist along the sides.

_Vengeance is mine._



**A/N: Alas, I must leave on Monday…for a long while, maybe a week. And so, I shall return, with plenty of chapters to upload. :D **

**Be warned: this is near the end! AT LAST!!**

**Shoys.**


	19. Chapter 19: Dance of Death

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: I'M BACK! YAY!**

**And I've written some chapters for my two fanfics and the non-fanfic I've been working on. Yay! **

**Warning: Violence, gore, bloodshed, and some sexual themes. **

**I've been waiting a long time to write this chapter…heehee…**



She stood, alone, and unaccompanied.

The room of the Sun and Moon was filled with dancers, a mass of them dressed in all manners of costumes dancing and singing and drinking and talking. She saw green frogs, roosters, beasts, birds, butterflies, monkeys, dragons, clowns, patterned dresses, angels and devils. These were some of the variety of themes that masqueraders wore.

He mask was glittery and bejeweled with ebony and rubies and fine feathers. She was the only one who was all red. And so she stood out amongst them as they danced and moved. The music was already starting to ring in her ears.

Sickened by the displays of contortionists and the bizarre sights around her she made her way to sit in a corner. To do that she had to go across the dance floor to that lovely dark seat by the abstract statue.

She was in the middle of the dancers when Prospero came up to her.

Soon she was swept up into the dance, the prince dancing her around. His brown hair was tied back into a ribbon, and wearing a fine blue hat. He moved her around with flowing blue robes and feathers. He was dressed as a sultan.

"A pleasure to see you again Virginia." Victor Prospero smiled.

She scowled at him. "A pleasure Victor."

Smirking he danced her around, holding her close to his body. Around the couple were the sweaty dancing bodies, the moving masses happy and ignorant.

"You know what's going to happen in a few hours?" Victor chuckled in her ear.

"What is it?" Virginia sighed.

"We're getting married tonight."

Her heart skipped a beat as he twirled her around and set her back into his arms, to slip a gold and blue ring on her finger, right above The Red Death's ring.

"You can't! You need my own consent!" She hissed.

"I do have your consent. When you were a little girl, you said, 'Of course I'll marry you.' And so, tonight you shall be princess and be my beloved wedded wife. And bedded, mind you…" His tongue was lecherous in her ear, licking and deceiving.

She had no plans on letting him do this! And this soon, on this night of all nights she was to be married to a vile man! Of all the sins in the world…this was what he had to commit. To commit forced marriage and rape.

He began laughing viciously, dancing her around in his own merriment. Now she wished to push him away and run, run out of this castle and face the night alone and finally succumb to the death she wanted. But no, he was strong and held her to him as they danced in the vulgar ways of the night.

As they danced, she saw red.

There in the crowd was a figure in white. He was wrapped in white linen, stained with blood and with a hood, making his face completely shrouded in shadow. He was bound together by red ribbons, as the figure shuffled along to the stairs. An amulet…that only the dead wear in their graves…was around his neck, rust colored with dried blood.

"Halt! How dare ye wear red?" Prospero called as he halted. The dancers kept dancing, those in the way of the figure moved and scowled at this foul guest. Who was he to wear red besides the lady?

Virginia paled as she stared at the daunting figure. The shambling one dressed as the dead moved up the golden stairs and into the first room.

"Come my lady! Let us catch that thing!" Prospero hissed and pulled her close, taking her by the arm as they followed the being.

She did not wish to, being taken with him as he tried to make his way through the crowd to follow the rude guest. The guest himself seemed t easily make his way through the crowds in the first rooms, past the fountains and food and musicians.

"Keep moving!" Prospero bellowed, trying to catch up to the figure. But the crowd, so happy and merry and drunk gave hardly a care as their own prince and future princess were almost smothered by the masses.

She had the most terrible feeling this guest was not human.

Through the gluttony of the orange, the deceit of white, the illusions of purple they went, keeping their eyes on the figure of death as he went to the last room. By now, the guests were curious and a bit frightened, and they soon made way for the prince and the few guards with him.

Virginia and Prospero went into the black room of lust. Guests filed in with their monocles and masks to amuse themselves. Guards with spears and swords came, bedecked in the adornments of revelry and watched, angry at this intruder who dressed like the deceased.

The intruder himself stood with his hunch-back turned. He faced the ebony clock, disturbing the lusting couples in the room to dress and shrink away from their pleasures.

She felt certain, as the hooded man turned and looked at them that those red eyes were at her.

"No one is to wear the color of rouge, scarlet, red! None save my bride to be shall bear the color of The Red Death! My dear guest, surely you know that rule?" Prospero hissed and stepped forward.

The guest stood still.

"My fellow noble, you are asking death! You know how amusing it might be to see a man hang?" He laughed and the crowd giggled, snickering as they hoped to see an execution.

"Victor…don't provoke him…" Virginia pulled on Victor's sleeve. He ignored her quiet pleas. The figure still did not respond.

"Any last words before the dungeon accepts a prisoner?" Victor casually said as he strode to the figure, holding a knife he procured from his jacket.

It still did not move.

"Tomorrow you shall hang from the battlements, but first let us unmask you!" He cried.

He moved to swipe the knife across the face, the others watching with glee at the violence.

And that was then Virginia knew who this man was.

With a whirl of the robe, the figure snatched the hand of Prospero as he held his knife. The hand was long and spindly, covered with a tight red glove.

All gasped in horror at the sight of the assailant's face peeking out from the hood. A skull! A gruesome human skull!

Virginia would have run, but the crowd was a formidable wall that barred her path. She turned to see the figure cast off those bloodstained robes and stand in the glory of shining red light.

Dazzlement. Red. Blood.

Prospero had actually screamed in horror as he saw the towering Red Death stand and hold his hand tightly. Victor was shaking, his knife too as he saw him stare down at him.

The Red Death wore the finest clothing ever seen. Jewels and gold and fancy embroidery were on his all red clothing. His coat, his vest and shirt and the cravat and the fine pants and the tights and breeches and sash and cape and belt and shoes and jewelry and gloves and…all that was, was splendor. Royal red splendor, gold chains and black lace. Rings and diamonds, a skull brooch for his fancy neck scarf, his other hand pulling out a large red hat trimmed with gold and feathers and jewels. Setting it on his head, it enhanced his terrible face.

A mask of a fanged skull was upon him. His lips were red with black, his eyes piercing red, and his ears with hooped earrings of gold. His thick straight long hair was red and tied with a satin black ribbon.

He glared at her, glittering and standing in the glory of death as Prospero whimpered.

"No…"

"Guests of the masque…Welcome to the last dance." He spoke.

All screamed.

The people were in a made rush to escape the Seven Rooms. All ran in a stampede through the rooms, running in fear to get out. The Red Death, he was here!

Virginia was backing away, staring and shaking visibly.

"B-b-but…the d-d-doors…" Prospero whimpered.

"You little man…you constantly think your ignorance and pitiful barricading will protect your life. But unfortunately I am here to take your life, and make another mine." He squeezed Prospero's hand harder, and the knife dropped to the floor. A red mist was coming from his sleeve, and enveloped the prince's hand!  
"NO!" Prospero yelled. He was infected!

He was dropped to the floor as The Red Death pulled from his hilt a glittering golden sword. Prospero immediately started running on his feet. Virginia was already running.

She heard laughter, vile laughter behind them. They were in the violet room running for their very lives from the fiend all believed would not come. But he came, he saw, he is here.

And there Virginia tripped as Prospero pushed her out of the way. She yelped, falling down as she saw Prospero run farther away.

"VICTOR!! HELP ME!" She screamed…but it was too late, for strong warm hands pulled her up around her waist and set her to her feet.

She would have welcomed the man who helped her up, but it was he, that fiend who pulled her close to his body in an embrace.

"Years have passed without you ever leaving my sight…" He hissed. She winced at the scent of roses and blood, his clawed fingers gripping her waist and stroking her golden hair.

"I hate you! I detest the sight, the feeling that you are always with me! Now you pounce and seek destruction! If I could I would kill you!" She brought her courage forth and looked at him in the eyes. He smiled.

"Let us see your attempts, my lady." The God of Blood kissed her hand before holding it, and then the Dance of Death began.

With great ballroom mastery he was dancing her through the rooms. Helpless in the arms of a powerful figure she was trying to control her fear from making her whimper too much. They danced like they were made to dance together, as one…one voluptuous couple in the sparkling colors of the scarlet and the rouge.

Many strayed behind, and immediately ran at their approaches in the rooms. The singing in the white was drowned out; the greed of the green was quenched; the gluttony of the orange was stopped; the foolishness of the purple was banished; the deceit of the blue was answered with the herald of death at their door.

She never thought she would be dancing with him. Never thought that this being, this man, this _thing _would come and seem to…care for her again. She expected to maybe die, or to rough handled but no…he held her gentle, he moved her like silk, and his velvety purrs were like soft clouds that caressed her ear.

From the few contours of his face she could see, she knew that under that mask was the face of a lover.

Her lips tingled as they danced at the top of the stairs. They missed his warm touch, his tongue that would send her careening into the depths of passion…that felt _good._

He stopped, and she looked out to the hall of the Sun and Moon.

Blood had already painted the ceiling.

The corvine demons of Decay surrounded the hundred guests. All down the stairs was screaming and chaos! The demons gathered the guests together, having a partner each and moved to dancing. Soon, Virginia saw, the people were helpless in their claws as they danced them around in a crude fashion. But it was a dance the victims were forced to do. Men and women, even children were being danced by the horde.

"My gods…" She whispered.

"A dance of death, their last night living and tainting the earth." The Red Death whispered amongst the din of screams and caws of men and demon. Already she saw the mist surround the room, creeping along on the dance floor almost touching the people.

Prospero stood pale as bone at the bottom of the stairs. He looked at the violent proceedings around him, shaking and staring.

The Decay themselves, bird faced and toothed licked the faces of the despairing people. They had their hats, their cloaks of black and gray, their clawed hands and the feathers and crow feet as they hungered for their flesh. The sweat, the blood, the taste of copper in their hungry maws, and feeling of ripping and tearing…they needed the signal first.

The Darkness themselves appeared on the sides. All seven of them stood, quiet, standing as the mayhem ensued around them. They watched The Red Death stand and hold his pay; the new queen.

"God of Blood…the masque…is perfect." A shadow rasped behind her.

She turned with a yelp of surprise. There was a Darkness to the side of them.

"Indeed my lord. The world will be ours tonight, and tonight shall we become betrothed…" He pulled her harder against his side in a possessive grip.

"Betrothed? No…please…" Marriage? To her? _No, please not marriage!_

"Indeed my love we shall be wed and you will become…queen…and goddess…my love at last…" He purred in her ear and fingered the ring on her hand. She quickly moved her hand from his grasp, wishing that he had never put that ring on. Now it was a symbol at how she was claimed.

A tear came down her cheek; now she was to marry him instead of Victor.

Victor currently had run, running through the masses of people but the Decay were pushing him back. Soon, poked and pointed by their claws and the hissing beaks he was kneeling, staring and whimpering in a state of shock.

He received the biggest wake up call of his entire life.

"No! Let them go! Don't!" He screamed but the demons paid no heed, taking liberty to kick him into the light. The candles of the hall were out save a few…the rest shone and created shadows within the little light. The rest was darkness enhanced with only the glitter from the masks of the terrified and the gowns of the cowards.

"Too late, Prince of Fools!" The Red Death bellowed. Victor turned up towards him, pulling his brown hair and falling to his knees.

The god pulled his sword out again, moving down the stairs. He let go of Virginia as he strode down the stairs, watching his weak prey beg, seemingly cry out for mercy.

She stood, transfixed and afraid and watched the demon, the coward, and the dancing crowd of screams and struggles move in a whirl of darkness.

"Oh Heaven…oh Hell…gods of light…prevail…set us free…stop him…save me…" Victor sobbed. A man who was so strong, so renowned for his valor and courage and the power of the law…was helpless at his feet. Deceived by his own doing. Let himself and the rest of his own court fall prey to death.

The Red Death stood on the steps basking in the glory of horror. A being so dressed in exuberant finery, so young his features, so strong and tall and menacing at the same time was here to kill.

He sniffed the air, already tasting the plague.

People of all ages and ranks were screaming as they became infected. In a half hour they would finally die…here, together, in one horrible dance, their bodies eaten and defiled by their dancing captors.

"Sing!" The god spoke. The Decay answered, screeching towards the heavens as they cut and nipped their mortals who screamed in pain.

The Red Death then was satisfied.

"See them Victor? It was all your own doing…" He chuckled and smirked. Victor stared at the sword muttering words of comfort. "You gathered them here under imaginary walls, convincing that they would be safe! But when the plague came here, you would know that at least they and you would die in comfort…while you married and become King!"

Virginia listened intently.

"But you see…you cannot become king." The Red Death had a vicious gleam in his eye. "Because the prophecy…says you cannot."

"I CAN!" Victor trembled as he yelped. "She is the last! And the last king died in the desert 100 years ago!"

The Red Death paused, letting a chilling wind whistle through to ruffle his cape. There was no smirk here. There was only the idea of bloodshed.

"He lived in the desert. The Darkness, the demons from the world came and saith, "Thou wish eternal life, and thou shalt have if ye cleanse the world and reclaim thy throne." And so the king lived. The king who was banished there by his own father, who was beaten and abused and finally cast out and scarred on the face by his father's sword! He was dragged out, left for dead into the night while his younger brother Zasper Prospero became the ruler!"

The fiend paused. He licked his lips over his teeth that sharpened. Victor whimpered and clutched at his robes as the touch of plague licked his clothes.

"And the king came back, with a prophecy. All stunned and the ruling family that was and shall always be, the Prosperos, made sure history never knew that it was they who cast out their own son, who had dared to be different. The priests of the gods of Light and Darkness however heard the prophecy be made, and it was their divine rule to make sure that the rulers forever…till the last of the Mauchdoms and the real king come…that there would only be a Prince to rule."

"M-my own f-family…d-did that?" Victor could not believe that hundreds of years ago his own had banished away their own son, and created this havoc…

"Not surprising is it?" The demon leaned down like a crouching beast. Prospero trembled back. "You were all fools, whether vile, foul, wicked, terrible, stupid, bloodthirsty, perverted, or devious. It was a shame…" He paused.

"…that I am a Prospero."

The creature rose up to his feet, standing tall, and standing in the midst of destruction as Victor screamed his last!

Virginia felt faint, but she wouldn't be weak. She heard that beast, that thing of evil say he was a Prospero! And now she saw Victor scream even more, as the plague was in his body and now blood poured from his face.

The Red Death Prospero ascended the stairs, smiling and laughing. Laughing in triumph as he came to the shivering Virginia, pulling her by her arm to his side.

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" She wailed and started to struggle but it was no use. The beast was strong, was no more a man, and was a god…

He ignored her.

"My royal court, I am King Alexander Millicent vas PROSPERO! The son of King Albert vas Prospero and Queen Vanessa Prospero, formerly a Duchess of Mauchdom! I am the lost king who has returned with revenge!" He roared with triumph. Guests being danced around, dizzy and already bleeding were paled by his words.

"You all are filthy! The entire humanity is filthy and rotten! The Darkness have given me the power to cleanse this world…this land, for me to rule without YOUR insufferable persons being IN IT! I have plagued you to kill and have no mercy! A new world shall be born from the true king and queen, and you all…shall…die…" His words turned into a low growl.

Victor wept in a puddle of his own blood.

The Red Death, Alexander, turned to his beloved.

"Tonight we shall spawn a new generation of people. Tonight we shall be immortal…tonight the gods of yours will be known as truly dead." He said in a gentle tone.

"You can't…kill everyone…please don't…" She whimpered.

"Tonight the monarchy, tomorrow the last of the peasants. And tonight…" He purred as he bent down to her face. "Tonight my love…what I have always dreamed of…"

His lips were dangerously close. Her heart was beating, the mist all around…

"The plague!" She cried. She didn't want to die, not now!

"See my love? It does not affect you. It touches you, it holds you…but you are the cure, you are invincible, your blood is so pure and healthy. You, my love, are the only one in the world who is invincible to my disease."

She was the cure.

She tried to turn towards the dying people but her demon lover ensnared her lips into a kiss, holding her head as she was smothered under his clothing, his cape around her trembling frightened body.

He broke away and raised his golden sword. The royal seal of the Prosperos was on it…but it wasn't blue.

"After my father died…any color to do with red was banished! My hair was red, so were my fathers! It was always red! But my younger brother tainted the bloodline and created the color Blue and Green as the noble colors. Blue for cowards, Green for evil. And Red for truth, justice, and…the banished brother." Alexander spoke.

Victor looked up, weakly getting into a kneeling position.

"Mercy…" He rasped.

Alexander smiled.

"Vengeance…is mine, scum. Tomorrow there will be a world bathed in the blood. Tonight your halls, which were in fact my halls, will be painted with blood! And like a flood it shall stain the carpets, and the armor dripping with it and the paintings of your family destroyed. My father and mother, and those before shall be glorified." Alexander spoke.

"And in the bed of the king which you expected to spend the night in, since you thought you WOULD be a king tonight…" Alexander grimaced…and to Virginia's horror saw him smile.

"In MY bed…I shall bed the queen. And you will be dead. And she will be MINE!"

"M-mer-r-rcy-y-y…"

"All the monarchy have become corrupt. And for that they will die."

He threw the sword…and it impaled Victor to the floor through the head.

And all Hell broke loose.

The Seven Darkness watched as the Decay started to rip and eat the people. Virginia was held close to Alexander, crying as she was forced to watch the most grisly scene in the entire history of death and war.

Their macabre dancers turned upon them like dogs. Men were being pinned to the ground, their heads being gnawed off. Their bodies were being ripped open as they thrashed and screamed, the creatures devouring their living organs and ripping off their legs. Children screamed shrilly as the younger corvine dancers grasped spears and weapons, chasing them around the bloodbath and impaling them in their young demonic sport…feasting on the young children's skulls and the delicacies they held. The musicians were stampeded and the Decay stabbed them with their beaks. The women…oh the women, their fate was terrible as they lay on bodies of their dead husbands and brothers or against the golden walls as the Decay clambered unto them, biting and lapping at their blood as they were raped and stripped to pale bloody flesh. Some were even being eaten, alive, as they were molested by demons. Some were already dead. Some were even too young to even know what was happening to their breasts and bodies. They watched old men and women being skinned alive, hanging from the chandeliers and dripping blood like rain.

All this the king and duchess watched.

The door to the rest of the castle was open. As it burst open and the Decay went about to paint the castle with blood, the ebony clock chimed the 12th hour.

The blood bath was dying down. Some people were still alive, Virginia saw. Four men bleeding were running out the doors, two women mostly stripped naked, and a child ran out. She saw that the mass of the demons let them, and after a pause they flapped and ran after them, screeching and cawing and holding limbs to smear on the walls.

One of the men had already fallen. Four of the demons leapt unto him and pinned him down, while the fifth started to peck his eyes out…

One of the women hid behind some tapestries and the horde had passed by. But two others stayed behind and caught her. Right on the spot she screamed as one ripped her dress off in one swipe, and the other already was in between her legs humping furiously and screeching like a banshee…

The child was too late. About ten of the Decay came back with pieces of the child's body and started smearing the walls with the flesh and blood.

Virginia saw all of this. She saw _everything._

She was feeling very, very sick.

"They will come back after they chase them down. The will gather the bodies and paint the castle and 'ornament' them with their flesh and bones. The women of course will remain mostly intact for their pleasure in the next few days before the bed and the dead body start to pollute." Alexander said calmly.

She couldn't say anything. She was horrified and disgusted beyond belief! She saw people being murdered and eaten alive and tortured and killed and raped…

"Please…take me away…" She breathed. The scent of blood was clouding her senses…

"This way my lady. You will be better very soon…"



**A/N: WARNED YA!**

**Well, the next chapter has…SEX…coughcough…just to warn you folks in case you don't want to read. Course I'm sure you can stomach it if you survived this bloodbath chapter I just wrote. **

**Shoys.**


	20. Chapter 20: Bed of Roses

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: WARNING: Sex scene.**

**Just to let you know…**



She could not escape the blood. It was a haze in her mind that made her incredibly dizzy.

She was in a dream almost, as she was limp and carried out the door. Alexander held her close as she was covered with his finery.

As she passed into the darkness of the halls she was more awake than ever.

She clung to the vest of The Red Death, as she saw in horror the walls painted red. Decay were everywhere smearing body parts around on the walls and splashing buckets upon the paintings and statues. They turned to cackle at her, snapping their beaks and hissing as they turned to their grisly work. A few took off their hats to bow properly to their queen.

As they went into the main hall she looked up at him. He stood, looking out at the work his minions were busily doing. The sound of dripping blood and cries of agony was everywhere as they painted and lit candles to light the castle of death.

Virginia couldn't take it. She pushed out of her murderous lover's arms and stood up, standing in her red dress amongst the bloody puddles.

The beasts kept on painting and tearing, kept on eating and skinning, kept on putting skulls on tables and fixing red candles to their domes, kept on raping still living or freshly dead women, kept on putting on fine clothing from the dead…

"You…you foul man! You THING! You let your demons destroy and mutilate and set out to kill EVERYONE for CLEANSING!" She pointed at him with terror.

He still stood watching her defy him.

"This isn't cleaning…its massacre. It's barbaric and disgusting…to think you wanted me to love you, a being who wants to reclaim the throne using horrible means of revenge!" Virginia was backing away from him. For good reason obviously.

"Does it scare you my love? To see them punish the sinners?" Alexander cooed.

_What does he think? Of course I frightened! _"Yes of course it does…it scares me…you scare me…"

Now she was truly afraid.

"My young lady, yet you are to realize that your world is destroyed, especially tonight. This new world around you…" He raised his arms and looked around at the masterpiece of blood. "…will be created from blood. Blood is the life."

"And to do so…you slaughter innocents. Even children! You even let your beasts rape them!" She felt close to crying now as she saw the stairs up to perhaps safety…

"Punishment. And a reward for our minions. They will forge gardens and beauty within the week among the dead." Alexander smiled as he strode to her.

"Get away! Begone!" She hissed as she picked up her skirts and was backing away even faster.

"My dear you cannot escape me. Your distress beckons me to come and smother you with love and roses…and I am commanded to satisfy my lust for you." His tone was serious, his eyes narrowing as he honed in on his helpless prey.

"C-commanded?" She whimpered. She saw the Darkness lords in the shadows…watching…

"When all are dead, you are the only one alive. You will be the only female left in the world. And you will be immortal and tonight…tonight…" He growled with definite sexual undertones. "You will be filled with my seed…"

Her heart could have stopped. But she was a strong woman who saw too much of suffering to know she was to suffer.

"That was your intention with me all along? A concubine?" Tears came forth as she shook. It was what she had feared, what she tried in all her life to avoid…

"More than that my darling. I love you…I truly do love you! You are the goddess of my religion; you are the woman I want to have my children with…"

"Enough! If you love me you wouldn't rape me!" With that she turned and ran up the stairs.

Tears freely fell as she ran and ran, not ever letting herself tire as she ascended the stairs. She looked behind her to see Alexander keeping pace with her.

_What fate is this? _She thought as she sobbed. _To bed the one creature that I have always ran from? Oh Goddess of Womanhood…please…please stop him! _Virginia prayed as she climbed up and up the tower.

Still he watched her; still he hungered for the feel of her flesh and the taste of her lips.

She tripped only once, and with dignity and speed she got up and kept on the last stretch of stairs. Her dress torn, panic making her gasp and scramble down the tower hallway. Her mask fell to the steps.

The room was already painted red. Grunting and cackling in the hallway was the painter, glancing at her and going back to his work with the scalp her was smearing. Still she stumbled around and ran, ran to the only room at the end of the hall.

She ran inside, panting, and closed the door.

The room itself was not painted red with blood. It was already red, with the wallpaper and paint. The bed was royal, with gold drapery and fine satin and pillows, a sea of rouge. There were candles already lit, a warm fire in the hearth, expensive statues, clocks, vases, and ornaments on the tables and sides…this room was a bedroom fit for a king.

_So this was where Prospero was to bed me tonight…in the King's bedroom, never been opened since the death of Alexander's father…and tonight…_She gulped.

_And Alexander led me HERE!_

Panic again, fear was again rampant in her thoughts. The bed looked like a bed of fire for her to burn on, this place like a room of sin…

Alexander calmly locked the door behind him.

"Why?" She whipped around to face him, crying. The tears were messing up her makeup already.

He gave no answer as he pulled out a red hand kerchief, slowly moving towards her. She backed up, and ran to the wall with her arms at the ready.

"Don't come any closer!" She grabbed a vase for extra measure.

Instead he went to a coat hanger and placed his feathery hat upon it, and he smoothed his straight red hair. The trembling Virginia watched as he hung up his luxurious cape, and then pulled his jacket off, and then took off the sash and the fancy lion cloth over his pants and breeches…

He was stripping basically in her view. His face…it was hard sometimes to see the emotions because of his skull mask, but his eyes and lips were burning with lust. The Red Death desired her, and he was cool, smooth, and suave about it.

She was helpless.

All he wore now was his pants, vest and shirt. He tossed his cravat aside with the brooch on it, his eyes turning towards hers.

_It must be done. _He thought. He was hesitant in walking to her to wipe her make up off…but what he was ordered to do, and what he really wanted made him strong.

He let the beast take over.

He would terrify her into submission. He would confuse her emotions and make her weak and helpless. In time she would give in to the love she was hiding, but tonight it was highly unlikely she will.

_She is a strong woman. The perfect goddess…_

Alexander was certainly strong in the physical shape. Virginia was cowering and looking at his body, his red shirt and vest hugging close to his body. The shirt was mostly sheer, showing the outlines of muscled arms and strength…

She remembered the few times when he had held her close, when he kissed and nipped at her throat like a lover…but they were scant seconds then. Now he was going to take it more than a few seconds…

"Please…" She begged. Gently he took the vase from her hands, the handkerchief wiping the face paint and rouge away from her face. Her body felt weak in his arms, like it was just craving to have him make her a woman.

"You know you want this…" The Red Death purred as he finished, his hands held her head, her eyes crying still as she contemplated her choices.

"I don't know…if I do. Because if I do I'll…I'll hate myself for it…but then…I…I…" Virginia pushed him away. Surprised that he let her, she went to the other side of the room, huddling her arms.

The Red Death stood.

"It would be better if I didn't take you by brute force." He purred. A smile came to his lips for a moment. The demon inside preferred force but…he wanted her love more than anything. "The best thing…is to give in to the desire of your heart. And I know what that desire is."

_How would HE know? _She cried in her head. Yes, her desire was to experience…sexuality. To feel the strange sensations caused out of love and desire, not from perverted princes and this demon.

Either she could fight him till the end or give in and see the gifts he had to offer.

But what could she get out of this? Losing her virtue to an obsessed creature who wanted to love her and have children, and destroy what is left of the world with it was not something she truly wanted.

In fact, she didn't even know what she wanted. She had been fighting and fighting to remain calm and try to…to help the people. More than anything, she wanted them alive and free from the burdens of the now dead monarchy.

_But it's hopeless now. _She thought.

She turned towards him. The light was dimmed, he stood with his perfect body, his perfect lips, and his eyes that peered from his mask that loved her…and conflicted with another fire.

Inside she had been waiting for this moment to arrive! Inside, at every dream she demanded and wanted him, wanted that part of him that completed her.

She knew right from wrong. But she didn't know what was the right time to give up.

She was tired, tired of fighting and fighting losing battles. She was so…tired…of resisting…of trying to remain offensive and always ending defensive…of being strong…and only in her sleep did she submit. Virginia even tried fighting the romance and darkness of her dreams.

Just as he planned, she broke through and submitted to him.

_A trembling leaf who has met her match. How she shall be rewarded…_He said in his head.

The trembling rose petal took a deep breath and moved towards the bed. She kicked her shoes off and her hat as she stared at the ceiling, gently sliding on the bed and laid down, resting on her elbows as she silently cried.

_How beautiful the ceiling is. It's heaven, with little cherubs and rose garlands…_Duchess Virginia thought as she took her hair out of her pony tail. _It's very beautiful…_

As she looked at the ceiling The Red Death stalked around, taking off his vest as she loosened her hair and looked at him.

Her eyes lowered as he got on the bed. He crawled towards her, his mask looking a bit frightening in the light of the few candles and the fireplace. The room felt warm and red…and dark.

Soon his face was above hers, his warm body settled upon her trembling form. She looked at him, his breath warm as she looked back. And she felt very upset.

She let him push her down, his hands turned into a humanoid shape, gently holding her head as it lay on the pillow. The aroma of roses made her feel…calm, as he kissed her and caressed her cheeks.

"My rose…" He murmured in between his kisses. His rose lay still and felt his male body keep her down with his chest against hers, his legs about hers, and his feet in her dress going up and down her shins…

_I'm his prey. I'm his little doe he's been hunting for years…_She thought as his kisses grew hungrier. _I can't…I can't…fight him…_

Submission. Utter submission to the beast that murdered her family members, that killed and mutilated innocents, that enjoyed the bloodbath and consorted with demons and darkness…

The Red Death was kissing her chin and neck, delicately savoring her taste. She was limp with tears in her eyes letting him do as he wished with her body. Her breath was fast, as he left his hand over her heartbeat. It was beating fast.

He needed her whether she would let him or not. Virginia took a look at him, and closed her eyes with a sigh of breath. She felt numb…but her chest did not as he untied her bodice.

Burying her face into the side of the pillow she felt every little detail as he expertly loosened the strings on her dress front and untied the two ribbons that held the top up from around her neck. She trembled and sniffled as he pried her dress apart. Her soft pale breasts were thus exposed for his eyes…and his warm lips upon them.

Gently he suckled, lost in his own moans of pleasure as he worshipped his lady. He was now pulling the dress down, thus loose, and to his dismay there was a corset and panties to deal with. It did not matter at the moment as he tried to earn a response from her.

Virginia let out a gasp and looked about the room. Her hands grappled him, hardly believing that a warm mouth chewing softly could elicit such…such pleasure and fear. His actions beckoned to her mind to let him feed from her, let him touch her and thrust inside…

Her legs were held still as Alexander pulled away from her welcoming breast and finished removing the velvet gown. She was almost bare to his eyes, a flower that was hidden by shrubbery and weeds being at last exposed to sunlight.

He too felt like he was on fire. Alexander long awaited the day when he could kiss every inch of her skin, and so much more! How he wanted to take her like the ravenous God he was. But with her…he was gentle and powerful. He dominated her, and she let him take her with patience.

No words were needed. She closed her eyes, wishing his warm mouth was there again at her breast to tease her…She looked at him again.

Her master slowly took off his vest, and then she watched him unbutton and take his red shirt completely off. The demon lover tossed it aside and his pale skin accented his muscles. He looked white as death but his body…was warm with fire. With lust, with need to join with his obsession together.

Quickly he removed his pants. She turned again and looked at the ceiling, looking at the smiles on the little angels as they adorned the trellis with roses. Soon his warm body had parted her thighs, and he perched above her with nothing but a scrap of a bulging undergarment for modesty. She turned to him; his red hair tickling her face as he gently flipped her over.

She felt even more exposed than before. The trembling rose cried again into the pillow as he removed her corset. In a matter of moments he pulled it off. In a few more seconds he pulled off her gloves.

Warm fingers caressed her back, causing her to moan her helpless response. Subjection to any thing he wanted to do to her was unfortunately driving her insane. She felt a warm mouth and tongue go up and down her spine and hands that groped to her front, grasping and squeezing her bosom.

_She sings so sweetly. _The Red Death thought as he felt her arch and moan again and again. She cried tears and moaned, gasping and giving a whimper as he pinched her with his fingers. Again he did so, delighting in her shiver of pleasure.

His mouth done with tasting her back he nuzzled the side of her face, trying to calm her down. She was still afraid of him and silent as a lamb. A lamb who was accepting her fate to the butcher, that is.

He had not much of a care for this. She would sing, and feel the pleasure he would give her. Especially when he was nibbling her ear. She whimpered at the feel of his mask still on and against her, and she felt his hands massage and feel her, touching her in places none had ever touched…making her feel warm and…dominated.

Still it was him that had her on her stomach, that lay on her back and licked and murmured soothing words in her ear. She was not cowed by this and filled with utter desire. Instead she felt trapped and tied down with invisible restraints, about to be devoured by a spider. And it was torturing her by squeezing…rubbing…fondling…licking…kissing…slipping…

"Ahh!" The rose cried as his hands slipped into her panties, a thumb on each side of her hips as she squirmed and squealed.

_Stay still stay still…stay still…_she cried in her mind as he held her groin, holding and rubbing and moving her panties down. She knew she had given up willingly…trying to escape would make him angry. She didn't want angry, not what she had seen when he was! And yet the pressure and pleasure was making her helpless. Virginia could not move to get up. She was trapped!

_Oh lord…his hands…oh God! Ooh! _Her fevered mind moaned as she moaned aloud. The demon purred at her shoulders as he explored her petals, prying apart and exploring and satisfying his need to know her, and to please her.

She was pleased and terrified. Her body made her moan and squirm as he pushed deeper and fingered. Subdued and pleasured her hands clenched the sheets and her body moved against her violation. The senses captivated her as she weakly fell limp, letting his warm fingers violate her. Weakly, with no thought she gasped and whimpered and moaned, her body grinding and arched to him.

"Yes my rose…yes…" He groaned and pulled out, not wanting to reach in too deep and break her barrier. His nostrils flared at her scent and licked his fingers.

She lay recovering and wet. She still was gasping awaiting her fate to become a pregnant queen.

"You taste like nectar." The Red Death remarked as he cleaned his hand. She whimpered in response and cringed. Obviously she hated him at the moment.

The demon grasped her and moved her to her back. She blinked and wiped away the tears as he kissed her stomach, moving his lips down her body.

The trembling rose had no idea what was going to happen next.

It happened. Virginia arched and belted out a moan, her hands grasping his head as he licked. His hands held her hips and bottom, squeezing as he groaned. The helpless woman moaned and experienced deep ecstasy. Still she cried and still she felt tortured.

His tongue pressed and licked, slipping in and out, tasting and savoring. Alexander even ground his hips to the bed to satisfy the burning. Her taste enough could have made him climax. The feel of her hands holding on for dear life to his scalp made him feel needed. She, whether she didn't want it or not, needed him to end this suffering.

"Oh…ooh…A-Alex…Alexander…" Virginia sang as he squeezed and sucked. Her sweet spot was being pressed making her body throb with pleasure. Her own hips moved with his tongue as his head and arms made her rock back and forth…back and forth…milking her essence…gaining her submission…

With enough of her taste to satisfy his mouth, he pulled out and laid her back down.

Her mind was addled with fire and desire. Her breasts craved his mouth, her lips begged to be kissed and her womanhood longed for pleasure deep inside her. She stopped crying by now and had completely accepted her fate. She awaited his love making to stop this…this need she had.

_Please…how it burns! I never thought…I'd beg silently for him to rape me…_She desperately thought…as he grasped her hands.

"I have waited years and years for this, my love…" He purred. He was panting and had her thighs limp and spread about him. He was on his knees and looked down upon her with glistening lips. She shuddered at the sight of him, formidable and able to induce so much lust…and fear, for indeed she did fear him. She was already almost completely molested by him.

"You are right to fear me." The Red Death spoke. "But you will love me in time, when you become demanding of my attentions." He moved her hands to caress his chest. "I know you are afraid of your fantasies…don't be. Embrace and live them. They all include me."

Another tear came to her eye. She shook her head as her hands were touching his hips.

"Do you understand how I have dreamed of you? How I burned and waited and kept chaste…so that I could bed you, and marry you and rule the world with you?" Alexander hissed. A whimper escaped her lips. "I have tried to show you but you are strong and brave. You resist. And just for me you give up…and you will reap the benefits. Tonight you are my slave and you will do as I say. Agreed?"

She nodded.

The fiend smiled slightly.

"I'm not asking much Virginia. Just untie this and let me make you feel good…"

Her eyes widened.

He grasped her wrists as she stared and started shaking. Now she felt exposed, her legs wide open as she partially sat up and felt her hands rest on a very hard organ.

She took one last look at his face before sucking in her breath and untied the string. He let her pull it off and then he grasped her hands again. His rose sniffled as he made her stroke.

"You feel don't you? I've been waiting for you to bloom into the powerful woman you are. You are powerful…but there is one person higher, and there are seven beings higher than I." He groaned. "Now…I can be satisfied…"

He let her hands go and she quickly withdrew, disgusted and terrified. She let out a sob as he gently pushed her down and let her fall limp.

_The garden up there…there's an angel tending the roses…_Virginia thought as she looked at the ceiling through her tears.

_She's watering that vase…how happy she is…_

The Red Death settled against her womanhood and spread her legs.

_Another angel over there…with a red cloak…he's hovering near her with a bouquet…_

He nuzzled her cleavage with a sexual growl.

_And the little angels cover her with garlands…_

She tried to breathe deeply and as calm as possible as his hands gripped her thighs and hips.

_Father…please…p-please…_

The rose screamed in pain as he thrusted inside. It was short and quick, and pain came as he stretched and filled her. Her hands dug into the bed as she whimpered and sobbed her pain to the heavens.

_Why aren't you listening? You CREATED this man! STOP HIM! _She cried inside as she settled down, impaled and still by his manhood deep inside.

The beast groaned and started panting above her. He looked up, his eyes closed in ecstasy as he finally got his wish. The warmth, the heat, the wetness all came together to please him.

She lay still feeling his pulse inside her. The incredible seconds of him…inside…panting and groaning and with a face of complete passion…his arms strong and his hands planted firmly to the mattress to support him…and the helplessness that she could not get away was something she had never experienced before. She was pinned down, her legs were spread and limp and if she moved them her body would hurt instead…and gaining the feel of pressure and sensation from his erection caused her mind to completely and utterly surrender.

"At last…vengeance…is mine…" He gave a deep laugh as he lowered his head and looked at her. He felt her around him, and tasted blood on his lips as blood blossomed on the sheets. His beloved was whimpering and crying, completely still and breathing fast. She stared at him with fear and submission. She awaited his next move.

And move he did.

He pulled out, missing her warmth for only a second before he plunged back in. Virginia arched her back and moaned, gasping in sexual tremors as her spine tingled and her body flushed with heat. Her eyes rolled back in her head as he thrust in and out, slowly at a deliberate pace. It didn't feel too gentle or brutally hard. She couldn't tell really, she was only a virgin.

And being virgin, the experience of making love for her first time was agonizing. For the first minute she felt her whole body move with each deep thrust. Every movement made her cry out with pain at first…for he was indeed grinding inside her…and then it was for the pleasure that made her moan and feel him touch and press against her sensitive insides.

She couldn't keep her eyes open. Her body begged for him to move faster and deeper and yet her needs demanded he'd stop. And her sanity made her stay put and submit to him like a good…little…whore…

A whore. Now that she realized it, she thought her dignity could save her from that title but it wasn't true.

However she couldn't think anymore. He was thrusting faster and harder and was worshipping her neck with his lips and nibbling teeth.

Her cries were not of pain anymore because she was numbed to it. Constant wave after wave after wave of pleasure throbbed her being-assaulted womanhood. There could be no reasonable thinking for both of them anyways, both in a fit of moaning and panting.

Alexander was aware of her breath and body. Her legs squeezed and her hands gripped his arms. He felt her body rock and move with him, demanding his thrusts inside that made her moan his name. She was dependant upon him…dependant upon his movements to make her go over the edge. She didn't even understand what would happen or why, or how exciting it would be…

"That's it…yes…good…move for me…let me move deeper…" He growled at her throat. The deflowered rose didn't even know she was doing what he asked. She could only feel.

She moved as he swiveled his hips, penetrating deeper into her. She gave a blissful moan as he made her even closer to the edge.

The growling she felt at her neck was a background noise to the gasping and the moaning that came from her throat.

Sex. Deep sex penetrating her. Motion and groaning, grunting and panting and moaning…gasps for breath, no sense of time…

He pulled up above her, stopping the wild motion of thrusting for several seconds. He didn't care if he was sweating under his mask or not, but he knew…he was close.

"For the future…" he groaned. _Savor it…yes, savor the feeling…let it rule my mind…_ He thought.

She was close to the edge herself. She looked at him, the towering figure in the dark and red of firelight and night that lay inside her, ready to unleash himself. Virginia could only lay limp and gasping for breath and just let it all happen…

Virginia looked at his mask, and felt him jerk inside her. She gasped and winced, feeling him thrust deep and spill inside. Looking again, she saw his eyes closed in ecstasy as he hissed and groaned in bliss. He began thrusting again, letting himself be relieved at last.

Curiousness and want made her see something…

_Left in the desert…_She thought as she reached up to his face.

She pulled his mask off.

He didn't seem to notice at first. He was panting over her, thrusting again to try again and make sure she would be pregnant. She bit her lip and stared at his face, the mask in her trembling hands.

Slowly he settled down as he realized he was missing something on his face.

"Where is my mask?" He panted. He rubbed his face, feeling the horrid scars on him.

She looked and handed him the skull mask. The Red Death hissed and growled, angry and looking at his raped lady.

"How DARE you!" The demon growled. She whimpered and still stared at his face with emotionless eyes.

He didn't want her to know, at least not yet, what was under the mask. He touched the large X scar that was across his face, ruining his visage.

_How will she ever love me now?_

But he didn't expect her hand to softly caress the scars.

She was petting them, feeling them with her fingers as she trembled and looked at him. She felt satisfied that she knew his face and how he looked.

"Please…don't put that mask on…" She pleaded softly.

Compelled by beauty and affection, even after making love to her…he placed the mask aside.

He was utterly joyful that she did not scream at all! She wasn't terrified of the scars his own father had given him. For that he felt grateful.

He kissed her fingers, and she let him move to her lips as he mauled her mouth passionately. Alexander groaned, feeling accepted as she kissed him back.

The rose didn't know why she was kissing him back…she felt tired and used enough, even though she had only been close to that strange rapturous feeling of orgasm.

However she was going to feel it very soon. Alexander as he groaned and kissed her began to thrust again.

She pulled away to press against his face. His skin was soft and warm better than that mask with the teeth and eyes. Now she didn't seem to care anymore; she attacked his lips, grasping his sides as he thrusted deep.

Both moaned and explored each other's body. He grasped her breasts, she grasped his shoulders. He thrusted, she moved with him. He chewed her lips and fought her tongue, she fought back and moaned.

And that was when she gasped…opened her eyes…and fell into rapture.

Stars in her eyes the color of red! Throbbing and her pulse loud in her ears as she wailed in submission to the pleasure.

"Oh! OOH! ALEXANDER! Oh God…ooh…OOH…" Virginia moaned and gasped aloud. She couldn't think, she could barely see and felt him groan as he ejaculated. Together…there was a heavy movement that shook the twisted lovers as they screamed together…and then it ended.

"Virginia…" He gasped out and kissed her hair. She moaned in response, falling limp in his tight hold. The twisted limbs around his waist and back slid down to the sheets as she calmed down and relaxed.

She was now really tired. She was raped, wet, stretched, and starting to feel quite exhausted. She couldn't even think of escape or getting angry now…

Sliding out, he untangled himself from her and brought the sheets out and wrapped them around themselves. Gasping softly, his rose turned to her side and rubbed her body, feeling the strange feeling of being without him inside.

_I'm probably…pregnant…_She thought as she settled for rest. First it was dancing today, then watching murder and bloodshed, and then…sex.

She thought she should feel terrified and utterly panicked! But her body was rather lethargic and used. She did not want to move or anything…she wanted to be warm and held and…well, having him suckling her breasts again wasn't exactly on the list.

He had come within her arms and held her close, keeping her warm and nuzzling her breasts. As she closed her eyes realizing her sin and the fact that she had let him do such things to her she cried, and felt him worshipping her body again.

Alexander could not get enough of her taste. He suckled, feeling calm and in love as he groaned and held her. She sighed and whimpered, falling into slumber as he lapped at her flesh.

And this time, he was mask-less.

_Delicate…_he thought. Purring softly, he went deeper into the sheets and placed his head against her womb, listening under her belly to sense her pregnancy.

_I will have a son…_The demon father smiled.

"A son…a prince of blood…" The Darkness spoke.

He went back to the pillows, reclining and holding Virginia close to him. Murmuring, she was half asleep and snuggled to his chest.

"How long have you been standing there in the darkness?" The Red Death growled.

"Since…the beginning…" They hissed.

He scowled, always hating how they always watched.

"It is done my lords. She is with child, and tomorrow we shall be wed and then go down to kill the last of the Labaverions…" Alexander stated. "Now go, for I am weary!"

Virginia had opened her eyes and blinked, sitting up and looking about the room. There, the Seven Darkness in their red cloaks turned to look at her.

"She is…a marvelous specimen…" They rasped with ragged breath.

With a whimper she huddled back into his arms, finding some comfort in them at least.

"You're going to kill the people, aren't you?" She sniffled.

They nodded.

Alexander couldn't read the expression on her face, but she quietly curled up and wept, weeping on his chest naked and utterly tired.

The Darkness left, leaving Alexander to contemplate what he had done. She was weeping herself to sleep and he too was tired…but she did not want him to do this.

_I must cleanse this world! And I must tell her of her past…of my own…in the morning…_ The Red Death thought. _Tomorrow she shall eat well…and we will be crowned by the sea._

He touched his face again. It felt good, strangely, to feel her breath oh him and on his face. It was cool, welcoming, and he actually felt loved when she made love to him again without the mask.

She saw a person in him. She saw through his all too real bluff of evil.

With worry, he closed his eyes and settled down for much needed sleep with his lady.



**A/N: Well…the story will be drawing to a close in a few more chapters. To you friends who love sexy scenes this chapter was your reward for being patient with me and reading! Yay!**

**R&R!**

**Shoys.**


	21. Chapter 21: Mind Slave

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: WARNING: oh joy MORE sex!**

****

Morning had come. The warm light came through the red clouds over the sea, rising over the depths of the ocean.

Virginia rose up from the bed and rubbed her eyes. She felt rested and peaceful...until she felt her insides.

Looking around, she saw she was in a red bedroom, ornamented and beautiful. The fire was out, the sheets were warm and she…was naked.

_What? _She asked and looked down, wondering why her nether regions felt sore, her body felt someone had chewed on it and where she was.

And then she remembered.

Alexander was supervising the Decay, making sure that the food they were carrying up the stairs to her was cooked and proper. He heard his lady scream, and his nostrils caught the scent of tears as he neared her door.

_My rose has awoken…_

He entered, seeing his lady under the covers sobbing again. The Decay servant bowed and set breakfast down on the table, as Alexander brought out a fine dress for her.

"Good morning my queen-to-be." He quietly said. Not to scare her, he reluctantly took his mask off and bent down to her trembling form. He heard her whimper.

"Go away…" Virginia sobbed.

"It would not do well for the people to see you cry. After all, they would wish to see the new queen strong and dignified before they died."

"Then don't kill them!" She pushed the blanket off and turned to face him. She was now looking angry and frustrated.

"Settle down…" He cooed and gently reached out to her. His rose sobbed and weakly let him crawl unto the bed and hold her. With no strength and will power to fight he cradled her as she stopped crying.

But she was feeling sad and frightened for a different reason. It was him she was afraid of, for he loved her and wanted to do things, many things with her. He wanted to pamper and caress her, make love to her all night long, to be in an endless rapture with her…

She did not want that.

Alexander, holding her, and near her warm naked body…he was already going crazy. He was only separated from her for a few hours. The mere thought of leaving her side again, after so many years of separation made him feel depressed and angsty at the thought. Lust was trying to wrest control of him again.

The rose settled down and was feeling warm again. The part of her that had long wanted him near and by her side was begging for his lips and body. The other wanted to hate him.

Both were losing control. Alexander gently kissed her, and then kissed harder and harder. His hands traveled her body, groping along while she squirmed. Dignity and honor had left him as he growled and mounted her.

She didn't know what to think. He was mostly clothed, with decent pants and a shirt and jacket but it wasn't stopping him at all. He wasn't acting like a gentleman, even a ruthless one, and instead as the monster in her childhood nightmares. His teeth sharpened, he had long claws and his hands once again were boney.

Alexander didn't even think. He wasn't. He couldn't.

"Alexander…" She cried as he pulled his pants down. Around here was the Darkness, in the room, standing around the bed!

_Why? What are they doing here? I'm already pregnant! _She thought.

Alexander was no more at the moment, his eyes red and wide like an infernal beast. He was The Red Death again.

As the beast thrusted into her again his rose gasped and squirmed some more. The demons leaned and keened over her, watching, their whispers encouraging him in the devil's tongue.

"Why? WHY?!" She cried as he thrusted brutally. The Red Death snarled and bit down on her breast. A scream erupted from her throat, one of the darkness leaning over and hissing.

_He is ours…our tool…our pleasure…_They hissed. Shock was more painful to her than his thrusts inside and his gnawing teeth upon her bosom.

"He's under your control! You can't do this!" Virginia gasped and struggled. The thought that they were controlling him…and then making him alive so that they…could destroy everything…and feel what he was feeling right now!

"NO!" She screamed and started hitting Alexander!

_I've got to stop them! _Her mind screamed in fury.

The Red Death growled and looked at her, his eyes hideous with pleasure and gluttony.

"Stop it wench!" His voice was deeper, his claws digging into her sides.

Taken aback, she was only used to him calling her dear, darling, his love, his little rose…not a wench!

Biting her lips she smacked him again.

The Darkness at once hissed and seethed! They swarmed around; two with black hands grasped her arms and pinned them down. They watched from their dark hoods as she struggled and bucked, screaming and sobbing as The Red Death was possessed…and thrusting again…

Pain. Pain and more pain, realization and abusement. Rape. Horror. Disgust and terror.

That was what she felt. Their hands held her down. She felt sickened instead of ecstasy.

"No…no…no…" The beaten rose wailed as the head Darkness clasped her head, holding her shaking head as it breathed above her.

_You keep him alive. You make sure he lives, and so do we through him. Make him happy…and we will be happy…_ The dark being hissed. She stared at invisible eyes as she suffered.

All her life she suffered indignity, the threat of The Red Death's lust, the constant world of the monarchy she was subjected to and helpless to flee and make a difference…

This was the paradise she had secretly wanted? No, this definitely was not. She did not expect this ages old conspiracy to be here, for Prince Alexander Prospero to have succumbed to the desert wind and become a tool of rage…possessed by these demons that promised him eternal life through slavery and revenge.

"Vengeance…vengeance…" The Red Death grunted as he moved deeper into her body. There was nothing that could dissuade him from completing the purpose he wanted…and was compelled to by the unseen forces of darkness. He did not know that his lust was harnessed by the commands of the ones who gave him this life, this chance to live and exact his human need for revenge. And he was gifted with a fated beautiful woman, to rule and live in luxury and have children of his own…as long as he cleaned the world of the evil, or the people that still believed and were in the old ways. For it was them that were corrupt and beyond help.

"Our children…will be raised to perfection…" The demon rapist hissed. She moaned her response and stopped her useless struggles. The Darkness held her strong, feeling inner pleasure, experiencing what their slave was experiencing. They did so quietly last night, but now that they did they were addicted to the pleasure. The feeling of pain and suffering and the dark desire for it in her mind…the feeling of a squirming, sobbing body weakly accepting The Red Death entering her. The feel of mortal needs from the body of their host.

And Alexander didn't even know it.

His rose started to bleed as the beast brutally plunged. Her body shook and tensed and belted out more forced moans and gasping breaths. She was not getting used to this. Every single thrust created the same and intense feeling of pain, the rush of pleasure that made her utter squeals and cries into the black hands…that caressed her arms and breasts, that rubbed her temples and fed off her suffering.

The demon god groaned and snarled, spilling his seed inside. The Darkness sighed with him…and growled, for their victim had not even climaxed!

With the strength of mind, their mind slave twitched and growled, inducing the senses and the demons making him kiss her. Squealing into his mouth she tried biting the tongue, trying to wake him up but the Darkness above her slapped her.

Stupedified, it let The Red Death grasp her breast and plunge his hands inside her, expertly pressing against her bead. The shock from getting hit made her easier to fell into rapture.

Gulping breaths and wailing moans, no sense of time was known to her for what had seemed like ages…only six seconds.

Her eyes opened, groggily, moaning, breathless, wet and raped in the bed with The Red Death lounging besides her and calming down. He still throbbed and was…confused. He had fallen limp with a grunt and groan, sweaty in his clothes, and the Darkness's control had left him along with their presence.

Virginia was now tried again.

"Ugh…" Alexander groaned and rubbed his forehead. Sitting up on his elbows and shaking his head, he soon realized his pants were undone and his manhood out, not to mention his darling looked like she just had rough sex and was recovering from orgasm. The breakfast by now was cold.

He was very, very confused.

To his dismay a gathering of Decay were in the room peering in with their black eyes and panting.

"GET OUT! BEASTS!" Their master roared. The aroused creatures fled with a flurry of feathers and loud cackling. Now he was alone to remember how he went from comforting his sobbing lady to finding himself with his pants pulled down.

He remembered then. He didn't remember the demons inside his head or them directing him to do it but now he remembered. The dark shapes around him he recalled were probably the Decay watching him rape her…or were they?

"My lady?" He panted. She looked much worse…

"They made you do this, you know that?" Virginia said breathlessly.

"I'm…sure I…I…" Alexander stumbled. He did not even know what she was talking about! "Whatever it is, you must eat, get dressed…today is the coronation."

Sighing, she sniffled and sat up, getting off the bed and walking to the bathroom as Alexander pulled up his mysterious lowered pants.

"Virginia?" He said to her.

His naked beauty turned to him and looked at him with beaten, sad eyes.

"I'm…sorry, my love." He confessed.

She turned back and sighed, and walked into the bathroom to freshen up.

As soon as she was gone he held his head in his hands.

"Ye Gods…at what price does my avatar and seal are blood?" The prince lamented. "I get what I want…I'm close to the end of the revenge…and I will never be loved and satisfied if I keep becoming…something else…and hurting her…"



**A/N: Ze plot thickens! Mwahaahaa!**

**Shoys.**


	22. Chapter 22: Red Wedding

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: Wedding day!**



The last of the people stood in the warm morning sun. After midnight they had watched lights in the castle turn vibrant red, the screams and cries of people being murdered was heard for an hour. They heard the Decay cackle and screech as the stench of death and blood came like a fog downwind to the city. The people were thankful that the breeze cleaned the air in the city, for the night tasted of blood.

But there was fear. They stood in the streets and walls, looking at the castle. The morning sky was red, the sun a blazing orange as it rose form the sea. The people dared not go outside the city to the cliffs and beech, for there in the mountains and crags were swarming with dark things.

As they soon noticed, the things were Decay, swarming closer and closer to the city! Panic spread around with great speed as the people hid. They watched, hugging their children and cowering as they saw the carriage.

Alexander held his beloved in his lap as the carriage rumbled its way down the mountain pass to the city. Wearing his mask, he watched as the Decay went into the city setting up the church for the coronation. He smirked at this.

Virginia wore a beautiful red dress, with ribbons and pearls and her long hair free to the wind. However beautiful her dress and jewelry she was not happy. She was in the depths of despair and dread. She was beaten, weak, and limply letting him hold her. She was at least warm and was in the arms of someone who would protect her, but also could harm her with lustful intentions.

"You will be my queen Virginia…" He purred in her ear. She gave no answer as he caressed her cheek.

Frowning, he looked out the window again as the carriage drew to the open gates of the city. He saw the dirty and depressed peasants being herded into the cathedral, the Decay pushing them inside to witness the wedding and coronation.

Soon the carriage stopped, the decay rolling out a carpet to the towering cathedral. Virginia looked up at the gothic monstrosity, the dark church with ancient gargoyles and fine stained glass. It was here all the kings and princes of the land were crowned…and here her fate was to be sealed.

A Decay in fine yet ragged red clothing, the driver, opened the door. The Red Death holding Virginia carried her out, setting his lady on her feet. She stood in the morning light, shaking and terrified as her lover stood behind her in full luxury, placing a veil over her face.

"Now you are ready…" Alexander purred and took her hand. The same Decay handed her a bouquet of roses, which she reluctantly took. Then it cackled as it ran ahead of them, the church packed with whimpering and fearful people in the pews awaiting the wedding.

The ending of her world was beginning.

Forced under pain and hopelessness, she walked arm and arm with the fiendish man. The doors opened, the light of the sun dazzling the inside. The glass was red, hues of the sun and flame.

She began crying as they walked inside. Slowly, with the organ music playing from the clawed hands on the keyboard. There was an alter, the people frightened and watching in terror and the priest, threatened with death, standing the ready to marry and bind these two together as King and Queen, as husband and wife.

She looked at the stained glass. The 7 Darkness was in the corners, and the glass was depicting…angels…roses, and the Gods of Light and Death. It was a beautiful church, but not as beautiful now because of the evil inside it.

She saw young children, men, women, trembling girls around her age…staring, soon to die after witnessing this monstrosity of a wedding.

Turning towards her fate, she soon realized she was standing in front of the altar, the high priests saddened by the sight before him. A pale, traumatized woman of the highest honor being married to this tall, skull faced wicked creature. The priests were sickened with fear and disgust.

Now they stood at the altar of the sacraments. The idols, the faces of the gods looked down. Blood was spread upon their priceless figures, defacing the deities of the culture. A tear dripped down her cheek as she saw the idols of her life show in such irreverence.

The altar was a small table, with red cloth and the head priest standing with a scepter of bones. The demon nodded to the priests, holding Virginia's hand as he pulled her down to her knees.

They kneeled, their eyes lowered as the priest did as he was ordered to. To marry them both in the ways of land, that has never changed since the forgotten creation of Labarverion.

"Gathered here, oh lords of the lords…One man and one woman seek your power of union." The priest boomed through the silent church. The Red Death took his hat off in reverence as they awaited the blessing.

"Gods, of Death and Life…bind The King and The Queen together in spirit and body, forever their souls will never part, unless it is your gathered wishes to undo in the afterlife."

The priest dipped his fingers in blood, splattering little drops unto them as he blessed them. Virginia shivered and dared not move.

"I now declare to the heavens that this couple shall be bound together and forever in the eyes of heaven and earth." With that he knighted them with the scepter, and the pair rose.

"You may kiss…the bride…" The priest sighed as he slouched in defeat.

Turning to her King, she silently wept as terror and utter despair ensnared her. Alexander, promptly putting his hat back on, looked at his bride.

"You are beautiful, my queen." He purred as he leaned into her weary face.

"You would have been too, in my eyes…" She whispered as he kissed her.

The crown started their weeping at such dishonor, at such evil and pain they saw before their eyes. It was a mockery of pleasantry, of love and kingdom. Anger and despair filled the church from their weary voices.

It was music to the Darkness.

Virginia felt her insides boil as she felt the masses feel their end. She saw the Decay waiting for their master's word to feed on the last of the land…to destroy, and plummet them to the waiting arms of Death.

But it was not really what Alexander wished. She knew thus. For it was the Darkness that controlled and wished this. She was married forever in the binds of matrimony, beaten and raped and tortured and destroyed in her mind…

Only to be the manipulated toy of the inhuman. Her soul to Alexander was what made him go through with this barbarity, this long hunger for vengeance.

Again she braved herself and turned towards him. He looked at her, his eyes red as he did not know or feel the Darkness control him. He leered at her with his lips, on the tip of his tongue the command to destroy all hope. And she was married to this beast…

"No." She spoke in tears.

The eyes seemed bottomless. The humanity ensnared with the perpetual rapture of bloodlust. Evil desires mixed in perpetually of his almost destroyed mind.

"What?" The beast spoke with a laugh on his face.

"If you love me…you will not destroy the innocents."

Ability. Power. Strength took over. Virginia knew, as Queen, then, her power over his subtly influenced mind.

She was everything to him.

Daringly she broke her grasp from his hand. Endurance and purpose brought forth her true speed in her legs as she ran into the sunrise. The doors swung open as she escaped and felt the thrill of short freedom…

The Red Death bit his lip as he couldn't say the words. He had to follow her. He smelled ambition and ill will from her as she wrested control of herself.

_How could she break free? _He thought as he swooped after her into he streets. His lady was so weak and submissive to him before…now she gathered a deadly courage to fight him back, to fight her real love for him…

She ran. Ran out of the city, running in her blood-red wedding dress and out into the fields. Tears streaked past her face as one purpose came to mind…one…

_I will die with the rest of my land. Or…he will come to the terms and let them live. Let my people live…live…_

The Red Death followed, trying to catch up. Watching her run, his rose, it slowed his senses…he was in Dazzlement, and it soon changed.

It looked like she was about to run off the cliff into the sea.

The speed of demons he leaped, his arms outstretched as she was about to bound over the precipice.

_NO MY LOVE!! NO! _His mind roared as he collided with her, wrapping her tightly to his body and dove to the ground.

He felt her shivering warm body cling to him as they hit the grass. His elbows and bulk kicked up clods of turf. Her mortal fingers clung to his red body as they breathed and held each other on the ground…

His shape protected her from the gale winds of the cliffs. The sky…as red as blood, the sun tainting it into shades of light and mourning. Still it was red; still it was painting the sea into blood. Like it was bleeding into the waters…where Virginia would have died.

He looked down. The Darkness in his head watched through his eyes as he took in her state of mind.

Limp. Alive and sad, pale and so very, very strong.

Her hand that was part of her abused body reached and tossed his skull mask off. He neither flinched nor blinked. Her eyes lit up as she studied his almost human face…though scarred and marred. The demons of his mind hid, letting the man that was Alexander croon and hold his obsession, his lust.

"I will die…if you kill them." She whispered. Alexander stroked her cheek…sensing her will.

All those years, all his ingenious tortures had created strength. He was even marveled at how he had shaped her will…and now that will bound her life to the lives of her people.

She was now Queen, after all.

"You have no need to die with them. You have me!" Alexander hissed caressed her body, hoping to coax her back to his side, hoping for lust to take control of her mind…

"It is selfish to live while they are dead. It is selfish to only have you as my mate…it is selfish for you to become the only one left." His rose's eyes glowed with inspiration and the will to fight back for what was right.

At those words, he knew she was lost to him.

His eyes threatened to water with salty tears. She looked at him with sincerity. She WOULD die if he went on destroying.

Enough of his vengeance had been sated already. How much more blood would he have to spill to satisfy? How could he settle down and live after all this if he completely finished what he planned?

He had hurt her enough. What he did…what he had done to her, her family, her people…

Alexander punished those who sinned. Yet he too sinned…and he needed punishment.

_What a vicious circle I have lived. All but a lie! _

The vision of beauty before him had shown him the way. It was there to him all along, all those many years! Oh how he felt so terrible that he could not see for himself…that he was too arrogant to let himself see another opinion.

Unless he was controlled.

Her eyes shone brightly with tears, like beautiful blue glass orbs. His lust for vengeance and his dreams all revolved around this one woman he was destined to marry…all he did was for her and himself.

_No it wasn't…all I did was for her…The Red Death did for himself._

His mind felt pressure as he felt his inner demons fight and tell him no. He got off his beloved, standing up in the wind of the sunrise and glancing at the city.

The people that were alive watched from the walls, the Decay ready for his command to slaughter and destroy.

He could make only one choice.

He threw his hat into the wind, letting it fly yonder the cliff's edge and over the sea. The Decay, in fury screeched and flew into the sky, flapping as a mass of large crows over the city and past the walls into the mountains and pastures. They had been released of his service.

"They will go back to the hell they came from." He quietly spoke. His long rouge hair blew with the wind as she slowly got to her feet.

"What will you do now? The demons still control you." Virginia said.

"I will fight them." His voice lowered as he was feeling more pressure in his head…the voices of the darkness chiding and clawing at his inner mind.

"Alexander…" She said as she walked to him. "I will miss you."

"Someday when the world settles down, we shall see each other again." Alexander held her hand, bringing it up to rest over his heart.

_How I will miss the warmth of your hand…_

"I…I love you, you know that?"

Alexander smiled as she said this. He kissed her knuckles and her ring, feeling more pain in his head but he didn't care. She only wanted to feel him alive and near her again for the last time.

She kissed him, both weaving their fingers into each other's hair, both passionately showing their love, both hoping for the future.

She felt no expanse of time as she hugged and kissed him. The warmth of his mouth and body sent chills up her spine. He shivered as he caressed her warm lips with his own. No one could stop them from speaking odious love without voices.

"May you live a long and happy life. Go; lead your people to a new age." He whispered as he parted from her embrace. A tear came down her cheek as she watched him walk…walk a long, long way along the cliff edge towards the forest.

_I will move on and stay strong for your sake…my King. _

The Queen went towards the city, to begin the new age.

The King had some other business to attend to first.



**A/N: This isn't the end just yet me friends!**

**If you want to read the last two chapters, READ and REVIEW. THAT MEANS YOU!!**

**Shoys.**


	23. Chapter 23: Desert Story

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: This is kinda short, but I'm feeling a bit uninspired at the moment. I guess there's going to be three more till the end…**



Cold whispering shadows. The world of light and darkness were opened upon the sight and the shedding of blood. The seal was broken by the powers of the powerful at the other side. 7 of them had come at the call of the dying man in the desert, looking down upon the weakling mortal a hundred and 18 years before this day.

The man was young and strong but no match for the ferocity of the desert wind and the barren land that bore no fruit. He suffered in madness and thirst, hungry for water and revenge. Hate fueled him on for no physical substance was to be found. Even the blood that seeped from his cracked scabs, soon to be scars, no longer whet his tongue. It was luck that made his eyes still there unharmed. But the vision had already gone blurry with illusions and mirages of water and castles.

It was there he prostrated himself upon the sand and the demons came amongst them. The creatures of darkness heeded his call for death.

The black smoke swirled around him, tasting and judging their prey. His mind was open as a book and was over-filled with hate. The black demons could hardly believe what lay before them. A man at wit's end, so close to death…was begging for a way of release from his suffering.

The conjurers proposed, they tempted and shown him power. Here was the being they knew would be their own. The Darkness always wanted to lust and control, to destroy life and populate this Plane with their own mockery of life. This mortal of hatred, of power and human mind was soon all too easily exposed.

They sapped his blood and fashioned for themselves cloaks that divided the Darkness into 7 but one beings. Their spirits and power possessed his kind and body. Their knowledge of committing evil penetrated his brain. They re-fashioned him into no more than mortal.

He lay weak and naked. His words that allowed them to do this to him had opened forth The Darkness's power. In the desert was created a castle of blood, and they lay him there amongst them. Demons were fashioned from The Darkness's hands in the corvine shape, sitting the wishes of their hapless tool or power. Jewels and begrudery were provided, clothes fashioned from the air. All rouge and scarlet, and with the luster of gold.

The man was indeed a prince, the prince of his land. The mortal was smart and cunning. But his mind was easily addled with the lust for revenge and darkness. So the demons plotted and wrote the prophecy. They had fated the birth of a female, the last of the line that the prince was going to marry. They made sure of that future.

When he embraced his powers and learned to control his blood lusting habits, they used him to behold himself to the prophecies on the coronation of the prince's brother.

No more would there be a king of the land, till the end of 118 years. The demons masqueraded themselves as their gods.

For there were no gods the people worshipped. Even their prince, now king, was deceived.

Till now.



**A/N: Thank you to all my lovely reviewers, and including my new one! **

**Review? Heehee…**

**Also, sorry about the cliffhanger here. I'll write the next chapter soon…just need to find a time to concentrate on it. It's going to be tough…**

**Shoys.**


	24. Chapter 24: Bleeding Mind

A/N: Chapter two

**A/N: One more chapter left guys…**



Alexander walked in the woods. Though immortal, he still remembers this place of his childhood.

Back then the woods were bright. There wasn't as much dense foliage to make the place dark. When he was young and played in the trees there was grass, wildflowers and singing birds. Older, he used to hunt the deer here on the hunts. It was still beautiful.

Now many, many years later he was here in the grove. There was the Old Oak where he climbed. It was now old and gnarly with graying bark. He used to have picnics in the grass under the sun. Now the grass was dead and mossy, the trees shading the place from the sun. He used to listen to the birds. No birds sung.

The forest was thick with vegetation and branches, the trees towering over them. Darkness reigned with green shadow as the red man stood in the middle of it all.

And all hell broke loose.

Alexander fell to his knees, the demons of darkness thronging around him. The red cloaks, fashioned from his living life blood swayed around him with trembling outreached claws.

_Kill for us…make love for us…please! _They whispered words only demons know.

"Never. My captors and deceivers shall gain no triumph with me." He spoke in the tongue of their kind…of his kind, for what he was fashioned was done by they.

The Darkness swayed back as they tried to penetrate his mind. It was closed tightly to them, for now Alexander understood how he was used. He had brought these evil beings to the earth and he had been their vessel of control. He had let them cause such destruction.

_If they are evil…then they must know that this world they are destroying truly…truly…_

_It must be good._

His eyes widened as he realized thus. How the control, how the revenge and the mockery of it all had plagued and made him do horrible things…that he thought was right.

Falling to his knees, the Darkness swarmed around him taunting and trying to take him over in his weakened state of disbelief.

But he could not let them. He could not let them refashion the world to evil and destroy the real purity of this world. The beauty of the trees and the land…all would be destroyed if they fully took over his mind and body.

And his love would be ravished to death under such hideous circumstances.

"Never…Never!" He cried to the sun.

The Darkness cackled around him.

He did not care how this sudden repentance affected him.

"OH GODS!" He cried.

_They will not answer…there are no gods…only darkness…_

"That can't be true! It was the Gods of Death that created me, another god!" His fingers dug into his own scalp.

_YOU are the natural...there never were any gods of the unnatural to command you! We are the evil…and you will be the evil…_They churned in a vicious circle, the blood robes turning into red mist in their shadowy bodies.

"I will never fall. I will never let her become a slave to your lusts. I will not taint this land the immortal color of blood."

Brave he stood, looking up at their shadowy eyes. Inside the hollows of their shifting shapes they had nothing but a pit of nothingness. Of absolute chaos.

"Blood is the life. But it will not be the death of life."

He stood up with new strength. The King still had the ambitions of his past. It was still his present. And he was still immortal and strong.

The Darkness would not have this.

In the swarm they came, down into his head. Alexander cringed and hissed in pain as the demons went into his head, attacking his brain, trying to get through his strength to take over.

Alexander would not let them succeed.

Pain and pressure. The Darkness prodded and pushed his mentality and tried. Darkness and chaos threatened him.

He rolled to the ground, screaming in agony! It felt like his mind was being ripped in two, his head split open, and his own life at stake…

And he had to fight them.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" He roared.

The Darkness formed into one being, one form that they were before. Their power was no longer separated but condensed to strike harder at his mental defenses.

_I cannot lose…for my love…for everyone…_He thought.

He would not lose. Not to them, not to the world. He would forever be lost with the world as they destroyed it.

The Darkness felt defeat as they clawed at his mind. His mind had unlocked something powerful, something bright like heaven. Like goodness, like sunlight. The demon as it thrashed and screamed knew the death of itself would happen if it did not withdraw and hide back to the shadows. The power, the force and pressure of the phsych threatened to overtake the altered energy of life.

With pain, physical pain, Alexander screamed as he toppled to the ground, holding himself and concentrating. Forcibly, he was pushing the Darkness from his head. The dark form was disintegrating into the earth, fleeing the immortal…now the mortal, mind.

The Darkness had lost. It wailed unearthly as it rose high and plunged into the soil. The grass died as the ghoulish specter went back to the realm from which it came.

He relaxed, weakened, and looked around himself.

There was a mist of red, of the blood he had given them. They had left it behind, the blood from when he was first changed.

The mist attacked him, toppling him as he writhed. The pores of his skin and his mouth were filled with his real blood. The blood that was his own went back into his veins.

He lay still, almost unconscious as his heart beat moved not the elixir of dark energy, but blood, through his vessels.

And he felt so very, very old. He felt warm, he felt…feelings.

The Darkness had left him. He was now a mortal again, once more.

He went to his feet, a bit unsteady. His hands were not changing into claws at will. He felt, in his stomach, hungry. He felt a bit tired, and his skin was warm as the veins pulsed with life blood.

And he knew now that he was going to age till his death.

He looked back at the spoiled ground the Darkness fled into. He knew that, because they no longer had the strength of their possessed, they had to return to their own realm to survive.

And now he was finally free.

He could die, and be wounded. He had no power except over himself.

Alexander knew he was not needed. He knew that the new world that he had inadvertently created would not tolerate The King.

But they will follow The Queen.

Alexander, formerly The Red Death, began his walk through the woods till he would find the perfect home for his solitude.

And the world will heal in his absence.



**A/N: R&R.**

**Shoys.**


	25. Chapter 25: New Blood

****

The man walked on the paved road to the city.

They sky was a healthy shade of blue. The birds were singing, and the city was in the throes of a happy, busy day. He could already here the people chattering, laughing, the wheels of carts and the brays and neighs of animals beyond the city walls. Looking forward down the hill, the old man saw the beautiful city, sparkling like a diamond in the sun.

The man stopped at a tree stump next to the road. Setting his backpack down, he snuffled through the pack of scrolls, pens, ink and such and found some cloths and a jar of oil. Gently with his wrinkling hands he took his glasses off and wiped them clean with the oil.

The sun beat down on this spring day, and he pulled his wide-brimmed red hat more over his face. The hat itself was old and tattered, the red faded into a dark maroon of sorts. Its edges were dog eared and the little brooch only held one single, stripped red feather. The hat truly must have a great hat once before.

A cart went by, with children following it. They were playing with ribbons in the air, and they waved and smiled at the old man on the stump. They saw his dark red robes and the scrolls and books in the pack, knowing that he must be a professor at the University.

In fact, it appeared the old man was going to the university. He took a look at his map of the new campus.

"Hmmm…science building…no, wait…I'm at the Anatomy building…" The man gave a wrinkled smile, not caring if he was talking out loud. He reviewed his papers once again, making sure that he was signed up to be a teacher of Surgery.

He was. Signed at the dot. He was accepted to teach this new generation how to operate successfully.

After all, he was a chemist and doctor.

Smiling he packed up his things, retied his long silver hair back and walked down to the open city gates.

He saw a beautiful city, indeed more beautiful than he saw it last. He stood in the middle of the colored cobblestones, surrounded by clean bright buildings, seeing the beautiful red church, fabled for it's history, and the art museum, and the new University of the Sciences.

It was the first University in 159 years.

A tear came to his eye. He looked at the beautiful buildings, the people milling about there as students and teachers. He knew, then and there, it was the place of learning that hadn't blossomed in centuries.

Shaking his head, he turned to the sights around him. People were lined up, selling flowers and foods and other goods. There were children, rich and poor, playing with each other. Old and young, men and woman, wearing beautiful clothing and talking friendly with each other. To his left, the Parliament building just let out for lunch and the red robed parliamentarians were chatting and talking.

And then the gates of the Parliament opened.

All cheered and whooped with joy, instead of bowing to the ground in reverence and silence. They saluted the Queen with joy and happiness.

The sun shone brightly on her long, flowing red dress. It was simple, elegant, glittering, her neck covered with rubies and gold, her arms with ribbon sleeves and a beautiful golden crown on her head, glinting in the sun. Her hair was like liquid silver and long, the breeze picking it up. It wasn't in a pony tail like the others. It was left free to the wind and to glimmer its everlasting beauty.

She was a strong woman. Even at a ripe old age, her wrinkles around her eyes and hands bony she was still beautiful. And her eyes still looked so young, so happy, so strong…so…

Alive.

She softly stepped down the steps, the guards in royal armor of brilliant red and honest eyes besides her as she walked into the square, people cheering her and loving her as the real woman she is.

And then she looked at the old man.

Her eyes flickered, frozen in time as he gasped, taking full on her stunning beauty. She looked so free and happy. And yet so wise with a hidden weariness painted under her blue eyes. There was no arrogance, nor pompous ignorance and stuffy clothing. She was a natural beauty, and she was as beautiful as a blossoming rose at the sunset.

The man took his weathered hat off as he bowed his head. Few people noticed the old man, his body hidden under the robes of a traveler and scholar. For all they knew he could be a cripple, or could be a strong wrinkled man, or just normal, or anything…

But he still was handsome. His eyes were a shade of blue-green, with a strange red tint to them. This The Queen saw through his glasses, as the old man stood straight and lifted his head to put his hat back on. The breeze once again made his hair fly in the wind…just like hers.

He reached in his pocket, stuffed with scrolls. She stood, watching him intently and relaxed. The man was bravely walking over to her, a look of longing on his face as his hand was still in the robe pocket.

The crowd was still cheering, in a state of bliss…but the ones near her quieted, watching as she stood and the man stood in front of her only a foot away.

They stared. Nobody knew what was going on or who he was…but they were sure she recognized him.

Slowly she brought her hand towards him as he bowed. He lowered to one knee, his left holding her hand as he slowly kissed a particular ring on her finger…a ring of red, the ring of legends…A ring given to her by the deceased King, known as The Red Death.

The legend all knew. Many were young men and women at that time, or children. The plague was in their memory. And from them, when the new day dawned, their fathers built the land back to beauty, better than the world they had once lived. A world of freedom and liberty and joy. And from those children was this new generation, and the third was the children in the streets happy and growing.

Other nations came, moved here, and helped the nation back to its feet. The countries were broken from the land's empire hold, and in return Labarverion was a nation of intellect and science.

And the old man placed in her hands the beautiful red rose from his pocket into her hands.

As the rose she sniffed the eternal fragrance, and smiled with her ruby lips, the laughing wrinkles widened. The man smiled back, and turned before handing her a small scroll tied with a red ribbon.

The crowd parted, buzzing with gossip as he walked, happily in the breeze to the university to teach the next generation to become great.

The Queen whispered into the wind as she watched the man walk away.

"I love you still…"

She opened the scroll, reading the beautiful red ink words:

_I know. I am forever yours._

_RD._

The man shed a tear as he began to live the dream he always wanted.

The woman looked at the horizon, to the refurbished glittering castle that was her home…where she spent the most trying and life-changing night of her life many, many years ago with a certain man…

A man that was finally a man.

A man that made her become the person that she was.

A man that became the person that he was…because of her.

The woman looked at her son, with long red hair, the Prince, going to her side.

Her son. A grown man. A man of bravery and honesty. A son who was interested in science and chemistry.

Just like his father was, when he was King.

The rose smiled truly at last.

_Look at the garden…look how she loves the man in red…the angels around scattering roses over their heads…look how they love each other…look at them…forever gazing…in understanding…_

**The End******

**A/N: This is the last chapter.**

**And I feel so…so…sad, so sad it's over…**

**Thank you to my wonderful reviewers ForeverACharmedOne, Sakura2811, and Some Random. My only three so far. Also thank you to any other readers who have not reviewed at all but are mysteriously reading. I thank you all. I also thank you if you are a new reader and have started reviewing.**

**I also thank my readers on DeviantART, where this story is also posted. Thank you all. **

**I hope that someday, that this story would make a beautiful anime movie, or an independent animated movie, or a manga, or a graphic novel…which ever it is, I know that I want to be part of it and help make it beautiful. **Of course though, if it is getting turned into media or something to sell, I'll have to take it off the internet.

**This story I know is far from perfect. But the idea I believe in and find beautiful. I have always wanted to write something like this. It's what I enjoy doing. And I hope you have enjoyed it too.**

**If you want to read more stories from me, please check me out here and on DeviantART for other writing like this that isn't fanfics.**

**Yours in typing,**

**Shoys.**


End file.
